


requiem for lost souls

by perfunit



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: M/M, Soul Bond, Supernatural Elements, soonyoung is a human disaster, the sexual content is mild and brief, though they all are imo, unrested soul wonwoo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:00:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24803512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perfunit/pseuds/perfunit
Summary: Soonyoung wakes up with another’s memories.
Relationships: Jeon Wonwoo & Kwon Soonyoung | Hoshi, Jeon Wonwoo/Kwon Soonyoung | Hoshi, Jeon Wonwoo/Kwon Soonyoung | Hoshi/Wen Jun Hui | Jun, Jeon Wonwoo/Wen Jun Hui | Jun, Kwon Soonyoung | Hoshi/Wen Jun Hui | Jun
Comments: 13
Kudos: 60





	1. verse

**Author's Note:**

> hi! a few things:  
> \- this is unbeta'd + english is not my native language, mistakes are all mine  
> \- this is my first chaptered fic aaaa  
> \- this will be mostly told from soonwoo's perspective  
> \- it’s not as dark as it might seem, I promise!!  
> \- hope you all enjoy :”)
> 
> Also, Belated HBD jun and soonyoung! ^^

It starts with a dream.

A small house between small houses, all lined up by the bay. A whisper of midday seabreeze. Soonyoung is chasing an orange blur down the alley and onto the pier. The tabby swiftly jumps platform to platform, an arrogant thing, and Soonyoung’s short legs itch to replicate its grace. He braces, and then he leaps — landing not on his feet and instead plunging into sudden coldness.

Losing the air in his lungs, he sinks down, down, _down_. He sees vast blues — and then nothing but black.

Soonyoung awakes harshly, sitting up so quickly it gets him slightly dizzy. He feels around his throat, scanning the room. Notes he can breathe. Sighs in relief. In that order.

He doesn’t attempt to fall back asleep after that, heeding a vague, eerie apprehension that he might not get up this time around.

* * *

Soonyoung blankly stares out the store window as Jun sits across him, furnished with milk tea and a curious cock of the eyebrow. “What’s up?” Jun asks. It’s worth mentioning that he does, however, understand Soonyoung’s silent spells. Other people tend not to. It’s easy to expect that there is no end to all the… energy, because with Soonyoung, it does sometimes seem like the case.

“Do you interpret dreams?” Soonyoung turns to him. “You’re a therapist, right?

“An _occupational_ therapist,” Jun quirks his lips, amused. He offers a sip of his beverage, to which Soonyoung politely declines with a little shake of his head. Jun shrugs. “Go ask Freud.”

“Who?” Soonyoung furrows his eyebrows. It makes Jun smile. He pokes a cheek rounded out by Soonyoung’s confused pout. 

“Nevermind that, d’you wanna talk about it?”

“Nah, it’s actually not a big deal,” Soonyoung replies, and at this moment in time, he means it. It wasn’t out of the ordinary — people probably have oddly specific dreams all the time. But it felt… _weird_ , to say the least. There’s an unease about it that Soonyoung had ignored then.

Jun finds his hand under the table and plays with his fingers — gentle, mindless, soothing. And Soonyoung feels at peace. 

A calm before the storm, perhaps.

* * *

On his way to his apartment there was this bookstore Soonyoung always passed. Nothing eye-catching or special about it. It’s all brown and dusty and somewhat depressing, actually. It’s an old place, you see. It’s been there before Soonyoung moved into the neighborhood and definitely all the years prior. Soonyoung’s never thought to stop by, never having developed a fondness for reading in the first place.

But today, it’s where his feet bring him.

He can’t explain it — the pull that takes him there. It just seemed right. Like it’s something he would do — something he _does_ do, even though he doesn’t. Even though he had _never_.

He squeezes himself in, and the place, though narrow, extends deep inside. Books fill what couldn’t be more than a tiny corridor all the way in, and Soonyoung couldn’t see just where it ended. It all feels familiar — the hanging fixtures, the stuffy air, the peculiar scent of browning paper, the creaky ladders. 

Each story carried a story — or storie _s_ — of its own. A history of ownership. A whole journey it took before it got to this secondhand store. They’ve passed from hands to hands; lives to lives.

Soonyoung looks on, entranced. For some reason, he vividly recalls rushing in at half-past midnight, trying to look for the last unedited copy of an old classic in his university years. He holds memories of the old man who used to work here, who knew him by the books he bought. He remembers frequent visits, passing by strangers, feeling calmed, not isolated, by the emptiness and the quiet.

Recollections that were dormant — stirred fully awake by his presence in this store — came flooding in. He was full of them. Moments. But they were not his. Soonyoung felt like a thief.

He stops by a pile of donations when his stomach flips, the way it did when he got excited. Except these things aren’t _exciting_ per se, are they? And yet, he feels a strong attachment to these books all the same, and lacks an explanation as to why. He just _does_. He runs a hand over the aging leatherbacks, comforted by them for reasons he can’t place. He picks one up, traces a finger on the name engraved on it.

“Jeon Wonwoo,” Soonyoung reads aloud, a strange feeling taking root in his chest.

He shakes his head. He puts it back down, sighing as he does. He doesn’t think too hard about it. He briskly walks out the store and into the streets to be able to feel like _himself_ again.

* * *

Minghao says Soonyoung spends more time at Jun’s apartment than his own, and Minghao isn’t wrong (he rarely is.) Soonyoung also knows better to debate with the man, anyway. In true Soonyoung fashion, he’s at Jun’s, peering over Jun’s shoulder in the kitchen.

“Ooh, what’s that?” 

“It’s candy,” replies Jun, stretching a sticky taffy-looking mixture around this mini pulling mechanism that confounded Soonyoung no less than mechanisms of other sorts did. 

Jun liked to buy these weirdly specific machines. It wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for Soonyoung to chance upon Jun spinning some cotton candy in a mini cotton candy maker one of these days, for example. And they’re never a waste of money, mind you. It’s not a one-off deal. Jun — honest to god — really does use these things in his regular life. Somehow. “Do you wanna help?” 

To be clear, Soonyoung just isn’t one to be trusted around appliances. Or kitchen-adjacent endeavors, in general. Jun remembers Soonyoung making a phone call one time to ask about how to resuscitate his oven toaster. His frozen pizza bagel had gone into flames in there, taking Soonyoung’s toaster as collateral. It was not the first nor last time Soonyoung would run into a problem like that.

Soonyoung makes a face. “Don’t think I should.”

“Yeah, me neither,” Jun snickers. 

So Soonyoung proceeds to get a glass of water instead, slithering between Jun and the counter to get to the dispenser. Jun pipes up, “I didn’t have these a lot as a kid.”

“Yeah, me too. It just sticks right to the metal, doesn’t it?” Soonyoung says, nonchalantly sipping from this pathetic old mug. It said ‘ _Which dinosaur knows the most words? THESAURUS_ ,’ accompanied by a tiny cartoon dinosaur in nerdy glasses holding a book. (Soonyoung had pointed out the oddity before, and Jun had laughed, having forgotten he still had it. He’d swore it wasn’t his lame mug.) Soonyoung laments his taffy-deprived pre-teen-hood. “‘Cause of the braces.”

Jun turns to him, his face reading intrigue. “How’d you know that?”

“Know what?”

Jun starts to laugh, the sound of it high and charming. “That I had braces.” 

Oh. Come to think of it, Soonyoung doesn’t even _know_ how he knows. He just knows. Soonyoung’s brows pinch together. “Didn’t you tell me?”

“I don’t think it’s come up, no.”

“Oh, then…” Soonyoung pauses. That doesn’t seem right. Oh, well. “As a former braceface myself, I just know the vibes?”

“Or my teeth are perfect, and you just made assumptions?” Jun motions for him to come over, busy with the candy taking shape in front of him. Jun plucks a chunk off.

“For sure. They’re the hottest part about you, babe.” Soonyoung opens his mouth — a reflex, really — to receive the candy. His eyes immediately go wide and he hums appreciatively. “Sh’good,” he says, eagerly chewing. 

Jun seems pleased by that reaction, as well as his own handiwork. “I’m thinking of getting a popsicle set next.”

Soonyoung’s eyes crinkle, stupidly fond. “And I will not stop you.” 

* * *

Maybe it’s that he suddenly has a lot of time on his hands, or maybe he was eager for some soul-searching or whatever, but the moment his old friends from high school invite him on a weekend trip, he agrees to go without much of a second thought. He told Jun about it, of course. Turns out he’d gone to the same place before, too. (“It’s beautiful there,” he had told Soonyoung, with a soft smile that Soonyoung thought looked one angle shy from sad.)

In any case, he ends up driving for about 10 hours with Jihoon and Seungcheol on a Friday. He phones Jun when it’s his turn to drive up the expressway, the other two dozing off on the passenger seats. 

Over the phone, Jun tells him that his audition went well, probably thanks to the bouquet he found in the mail. Soonyoung isn’t particularly into horoscopes, but Jun (usually) is, and if anything, it’s sprouted this cute little tradition they’d do when either of them was about to go on something important.

Earlier that day, for example, Soonyoung had checked his own horoscope (he and Jun have the same one, anyway), noted the lucky symbol bullet, _forget-me-nots_ , and before embarking on this trip, left some at Jun’s apartment. Jun mentions the flowers, having himself a little chuckle about them, but also thanks Soonyoung. It must be at the asscrack of dawn now, but Jun’s voice doesn’t sound sleepy at all. 

When they arrive, Soonyoung has to gape at the passing mountain, dusted white with remnants of snow on its summit—and the lake, deep and reflective, like a mirror. At once, he’s hit with a wave of nostalgia that aches him so. And it wasn’t anything to do with Seungcheol. Nor Jihoon.

Instead, it had everything to do with the sky, how Soonyoung had to squint up at the bright, extensive blue. It had to do with the rocky path his body finds familiar, like his feet had been acquainted with it before. 

Something was missing, Soonyoung thinks. He can’t know more past that — can’t hope to articulate the feeling, even in his own mind. Deep in his bones, all he could really feel was the absence.

"I've always wanted to do this," he mentions later on. Ironically, he is not very attentive to his own line that remained still where it disappeared into the waters. He’s busy staring off, right where the lake turns into a line that kisses the heavens. The water was so still, the sky so wide.

Jihoon scoffs from beside him. "Fishing?"

"Really?" Seungcheol is incredulous. Amused. He’s got reason to be. After all, he’s reeled back another catch, and doing infinitely better than him.

"No," Soonyoung responds, with a face that says he’d perplexed himself, too. "Not really. I don't know why I said that."

The other two erupt in peals of laughter. And so does Soonyoung. Seungcheol, ever sentimental, also doesn’t resist taking them on a trip down memory lane, and they ride the fond accounts of their countryside childhood until the moon rises to hang shyly behind the mountain.

So there they are, light-hearted, at peace, sitting by the mouth of a lake, still so young and alive.

Soonyoung can’t help but feel… guilt.

* * *

Come Monday, Soonyoung joins Jun in an errand downtown. Jun had received a package from his mother all the way from China at the post office.

Jun’s mother loved Soonyoung. Always asked for him when Jun was video calling her, enough times for him to question who her real son was. Soonyoung charmed her pants off by the first (online) meeting, really. He was funny, respectful, and didn’t mind sounding dumb butchering all the Mandarin phrases Jun taught him in order to impress Jun’s mom.

On their way home, Soonyoung points to what used to be a coffee shop. “I used to work around here,” he says. And over there, the next block over. And there, two bus stops away. And also way over there, at the edge of this district. And so on. Soonyoung was and still is, in many ways, a struggling student, you see. 

“Yeah? My university’s over there, see,” Jun nods to a vast gated college. 

“Oh yeah,” Sooyoung says, mindlessly. It wasn’t easy to spot, being hidden away in the thick of all this greenery. The trees there had been turning brown as the days grazed October. “Maybe we’ve crossed paths, then.”

“Wouldn’t that be cool?” Jun turns back, from way ahead. Jun usually walked so fast, like he was always in a rush.

Soonyoung is about to catch up to the long-legged caffeine-driven monster, but something roots him in his spot. 

A flash, a fog, and then the Jun smiling at him… Changes. 

It’s still Jun, but it’s a different Jun. A different time.

He looks younger, though the bags under his eyes are deeper than they are now. His hair is dyed a vibrant red, like wine, and the quirk of his lips stirs Soonyoung’s heart. All at once, Soonyoung feels nervousness, doubt, and a sort of longing.

He blinks —

— and then it’s gone.

Jun’s hair is back to dark brown, his surroundings clear, and he’s frowning. “Hey, you good?” 

Soonyoung picks up his pace in accordance with what his disorientated state can muster. “All good, yeah,” he rasps next to Jun, his stomach feeling sick. 

“I’m fine.”

* * *

“Jeonghan, I think I’m going insane.”

Soonyoung says it almost theatrically, the table shaking somewhat with the urgency of Soonyoung’s lean. Jeonghan doesn’t even look up from his phone. “Like more so than usual?”

“Like, I’ve been remembering things I haven’t done. But not the entire thing, just the visual. Or like… A feeling.” 

Soonyoung isn’t even sure if it sounds like it makes sense at all. It makes sense in his head. But he’s got a stream of consciousness going, and Soonyoung makes most sense when he doesn’t. In any case, Jeonghan is impervious to Soonyoung-related confusion. He nods, receptive.

“And I’ve been having these _dreams_.” So _real_ , those dreams. Like he could feel the air kiss his skin, taste the saltwater. 

Jeonghan puts his phone down, making Soonyoung feel rewarded by the attention he’s given, even though getting attention wasn’t the point. “Is it like you’re turning into someone else?” Jeonghan probes.

“No, no, I’m still _me_ ,” replies Soonyoung. “It’s like. It’s like there’s someone else with me.”

“Like there’s two of you?” Mingyu asks. He’s eating a huge turkey sandwich that Soonyoung is eyeing. Mingyu notices it, and generously brings the sandwich to Soonyoung’s mouth.

Soonyoung takes a big bite, and continues. “Sort of? But there aren’t two of the same me. We’re _different_.”

“It’s simple, Soonyoung,” Seungkwan chimes in. “You’re a Gemini.”

“You’re confusing me,” Mingyu tells Soonyoung.

“And you’re boring me,” Seungkwan adds.

“Good thing I was talking to _Jeonghan,_ and not either of you, then.” Soonyoung rolls his eyes. He turns to Jeonghan, hopeful for the input or remorse neither Mingyu nor Seungkwan could give him. “Jeonghan?”

“Soonyoung, I think you’re stressed,” sighs Jeonghan. “Can’t be easy.” 

Jeonghan knows Soonyoung got laid off suddenly, and now he’s broke, unemployed, a month behind rent, and perhaps two McDouble splurges away from having to sell an organ on the deep webs.

Soonyoung purses his lips, unsatisfied. “Maybe.”

Jeonghan reaches across the table, placing a gentle hand on Soonyoung’s to comfort him. 

Soonyoung wants to smile at him, recognizing the effort, but for a second — a mere blink, really — he finds that Jeonghan’s face had turned into another’s, all too quick for Soonyoung to register any feature. Soonyoung retracts his hand in shock.

“Soonyoung, oh my god, you are _so_ on edge,” Jeonghan’s using his soft voice now. Which couldn’t be good, Soonyoung knows. It meant he was _worried_ worried. Jeonghan’s a worrier, after all. He liked to dote on other people. “We have to go emergency drinking or something. Like tonight. Bring Jun.”

Soonyoung yields, though he avoids his gaze, afraid of seeing a stranger’s visage over Jeonghan’s. “Yeah, sure, I’ll tell him.”

* * *

They do go drinking that night, and it did take the edge off for some time. Jeonghan told Soonyoung to go in something ‘ _at least a little slutty_ ,’ and Joshua had laughed, saying, _isn’t he basically married now?_ To which Soonyoung, indignant, had replied, _Jun and I will_ both _go in something ‘at least a little slutty,’ thank you very much._

And so they find themselves downing shots, Soonyoung in the tightest pants in the world (he’s sure it’ll bust open at the seams by the time the night is through), and Jun in a top so thin he’d been better off standing there half-naked. It’s great.

Soonyoung can be noisy and quite the dancer, sans the alcohol. With the alcohol, however, he isn’t much different, just a good amount gigglier and redder in the face. At one point, Soonyoung is yelling and dragging Jun to the dance floor. Jun willingly goes, his hand heavy on Soonyoung’s waist. 

Neither of them have ever had the concept of personal space, not with each other, so when they move to the rhythm, their bodies are pressed together like there’s an astonishing shortage of space on the dance floor. Jun is a mere breath away; Soonyoung can kind of feel it. 

He can’t hear him — or himself, for the matter. They mouth nothing to one another, but understand what’s being said somehow. 

You can scarcely hear the music more than you can feel it punch through the space, pound at your chest. The bass numbs the ears so that all they can really do is ring persistently and turn warm when Jun’s hands find Soonyoung’s backside. 

Soonyoung _has_ to assume he looks gross. He’s covered in sweat by now, understandably so. But Jun looks, well, like Jun. That’s to say, he’s still gorgeous. The exertion only manifests as a sheen over Jun’s forehead, clumping his bangs over his brows, and down his neck, slightly even shining in all the neon. His smile is pretty, wide and all teeth — but also a tad flirty, if the look in his eye is any indication. Soonyoung can’t help but swoop in as the beat picks up, Jun’s lips parting for him the moment he does.

Amazingly, he’s able to faintly hear Seungkwan groan by the bar. “And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the problem with inviting taken people to things,” he says, raising his glass for the irony of it all. Mingyu hollers, inebriated out of his mind, shoving Seungkwan’s shoulder harder than he, if he were sober, would have intended. Gin splatters onto the floor.

Soonyoung pulls away for air first. Jun tells him something, leaning to say it by his ear, his breath ticklish on the skin there. 

But Soonyoung is off-kilter all of a sudden. The blood in his veins is turning icy. He dodges Jun, not entirely aware of what he’s doing.

All at once, the erratic, flashing lights and the music — or the clamor of thuds and crashes, more like — blink him in and out of cognizance. Body frozen, a force powerfully tugging down at him, and oxygen in his lungs expiring, he falls onto the ground. 

He wasn’t expecting to reach the ground so fast. His vision is failing him, but he registers Jun pulling him out of there in haste before the ringing in his ears cut to radio silence.

Soonyoung feels bodiless all the way out the nightclub. Gravity bears its weight on his insubstantial form, it seems like, and he struggles with his steps even as Jun braces him on his side. 

Bile rises in his throat and he is forced to crouch by the sidewalk to puke out every last bit of today’s dinner. Jun wrinkles his nose, but he rubs a comforting hand down Soonyoung’s back.

He wishes he could pass it off as just being super batshit drunk. Soonyoung’s had a fair share of the worst drunken experiences ever, so he would know. But back in there… It just wasn’t what it felt like. He felt like he was dying.

Soonyoung groans, still crouched over his vomit. “I don’t like you seeing me like this.”

“Like what?” Jun asks. Kindly offers him a hanky.

Soonyoung takes it with a sigh and wipes at his mouth with it. “Uncool and stuff.”

“I see you uncool all the time,” Jun grins. It’s the lopsided kind of smile. Teasing and more attractive than it should be to Soonyoung who’s freezing and nearing paralysis and pretty sure he’s experiencing some form of rigor mortis.

Soonyoung frowns. He’s comforted by it, though; no pretenses. “I wanna kiss you.”

“Ew, no way,” Jun laughs. He helps Soonyoung up to his weak legs. “C’mon, my place is nearby.”

* * *

Soonyoung peers out the plane window. He sees nothing that can be a marker of life on land, and consequently, he is tempted to forget what it’s like on his feet. He’s just too high in the atmosphere, engulfed by clouds completely.

He is vaguely aware it’s just a dream.

But it feels so real. 

It feels real when his surroundings jerk, flipping his stomach like the apex of a roller coaster would. It feels real when his heartbeat paces, loud, and unimaginably fast a tempo. When the pressurized cabin fizzes in effort. When his ears threaten to split from the all deafening thuds and crashes. When the plane surges. 

The lights go off, and in their wake, bright red ones blink above him and down the aisle in daunting warnings. 

Then, something pulls him down. 

He resists the pull as hard as he can, but the plane’s rapid descent pushes him back on his seat, keeping him locked in place there. 

He loses air in his lungs as fast as he’s falling. He gasps and gasps and scrambles blindly for the mask hanging haphazardly over his head. But the oxygen is already failing to reach his brain, and he’s slipping into something more final than sleep. 

It’s all so quick, and yet it feels longer than it should. His sight begins to blacken at the edges and —

Soonyoung wakes up in a cold sweat. 

He’s downright heaving, a harsh inhale and exhale of suffering breaths waking Jun beside him. Soonyoung trembles violently. He doesn’t trust it. The sight of Jun’s room. The feel of the soft blanket he’s clutching with whitening knuckles. The stillness of it all.

Jun sits up, alert, and his touch carries a sort of magic. Soonyoung is resistant at first.

But Jun instructs him to breathe slowly, and helps ease his grip on the blanket. He pushes Soonyoung’s sweaty bangs away from his face. 

Looking into Jun’s eyes grounds him— reminds him where he is, where he’ll always be. 

“What’s wrong?” Jun whispers, running a soothing hand down Soonyoung’s arm.

“Weird dream,” answers Soonyoung. It’s understating it. Even Jun feels so. 

His breath begins to even out. Jun holds him all throughout it. When Soonyoung’s chest no longer feels so constricted, he allows himself to lie back down. Jun fits himself behind him seamlessly, his arm is draped over Soonyoung’s middle. Secure. Warm. Real.

Against his better judgment, Soonyoung falls asleep to the steady sound of Jun’s breathing that night.

And Soonyoung still awakes the next day, thankfully. 

(He’s no longer sure what worth that has, however, when with each passing day he wakes up feeling less and less like himself.)

* * *

Soonyoung arrives home from a flubbed job interview when he notices the lightbulb in his room had fizzled out to uselessness. He leaves it, at least for now. There was just no reserve energy or optimism to deal with that right now. 

_Nothing_ has been going his way these days. And that’s on top of the existential crisis that Jeonghan assures him everyone their age is having. _But Jeonghan_ , he tells him in his head, _I_ literally _feel like I don’t_ exist _— at the very least, not_ anymore _._

There are ways to cope with the built-up stress, of course. Soonyoung plops onto his bed straight away, like his bed was some homing device. He’s just lazily spread out on his bed for a long while, worn out. And _then_ his fingers are pulling his shirt up to his chest and undoing his pants. 

He wets his palm with a lick, and kicks out of his pants, mind drifting to Jun amidst the exhaustion. He thinks of how Jun kisses. He would cradle the back of Soonyoung’s head, and refuse to shy away from Soonyoung’s tongue. He liked to tug on Soonyoung’s lower lip with his teeth; let his curious hands wander down the knobs of Soonyoung’s ribs, barely graze a nipple, _teasing_ , then flutter over his tensing stomach.

Soonyoung twitches favorably to those thoughts. He briefly looks down at his stubby fingers. He wishes it were Jun’s long, slender fingers instead. He remembers how they feel.

He thinks about how Jun sometimes liked getting bitten— right at the juncture between his neck and shoulder. Soonyoung would see how his eyes widened a little. They always communicated some sort of challenge. 

The idea makes Soonyoung keen breathily, his tugging turning just the slightest bit harsher. A bead of precum sits prettily on his reddening tip, and he smears it over what he can, making the ring of his fingers the least but slicker for his dick to go through. 

He can’t help but moan aloud, bucking his hips, lost to the power of imagination —

— and then his mind drifts to a childhood home over at a pier. 

Completely out of _nowhere_. 

Huh. His hand stills.

He shakes his head, banishing the odd thought. 

If it were Jun, he’d probably pause short of Soonyoung’s completion. He had quite a mean streak. But you had to coax it out of him, just because Jun is just that giving. Soonyoung honestly isn’t sure what he’s into, but he’s definitely into that — into seeing the composure waver in Jun’s eyes.

So Soonyoung mutters a breathy _please_ into the empty room, the pleasure pooling in his gut rising to a breaking point. 

A simple flick of his wrist, and seemingly out of Soonyoung’s control, his frustrating thoughts muddle once again. They zero in, instead, on the brisk walk to a bookstore. 

The vanishing face on Jeonghan’s.

The name engraved on those old leather books. 

“ _Wonwoo_ ,” He finds himself saying, shuddering through it. Unfocused but sated, his grip slackens on his softening dick. The stuff drips onto his belly.

And then he lies there. Catching his breath. Staring hard at the ceiling.

“What the _fuck_ ,” he drawls in the aftermath, profoundly baffled. 

When he cleans himself up, he feels like he’s getting rid of some sort of damning evidence. 

How could he even unpack what the ever-loving fuck he just did there? He decides — right away — that he will not even attempt to.

“Oh, god. _Why_?”

Soonyoung hears another voice. The hairs at the back of his neck bristle, his skin prickling. 

For a fretful moment, he entertains that he’d lost his grip and he’d actually said it himself — that it was symptomatic of the identity crisis or whatever it was he’d been undergoing lately. But it was too deep to be his own voice. It just was not his voice. Nor of anyone he knew.

It was unknown to him, and it came from the other side of his room. Fight or flight fishes Soonyoung from his post-orgasm haze. His blood had run cold at the knowledge he wasn’t alone, making him clamber onto his feet, panicked. 

“ _Holy fucking shit!_ ”

He gapes at this guy who was just standing there like a deer in headlights, seeming as petrified as him. Soonyoung is reminded he’s pantsless. He clumsily grabs his pants and pulls them up. “What the— _who_ the fuck are—” Soonyoung splutters. “Ah, fuck, I don’t care! I’m calling for help!”

The stranger looks awfully lost, for an intruder. “Your doors are locked, I didn’t break in!” 

“I _know_ my doors are locked! That’s why I’m wondering how the fuck you got in, pervert!”

“ _Pervert_? You think I _want_ to see this?” The guy is red-faced, looking at anything in the room or about Soonyoung just to be able to avoid looking anywhere near Soonyoung’s groin area, even if Soonyoung had already worn his pants by then. Which is a little confusing. Not as confusing as these past few weeks, though, and that's saying something.

The stranger crosses his arms over his chest with a huff. “And anyway, you called out to me. So.” 

It _could_ be a slam dunk, referring to that whole stress-induced masturbation mess. Things aren’t adding up in Soonyoung’s head, though, and this guy seems ten times more embarrassed than Soonyoung. Like _he’d_ been the one who’d run out of modesty, even though Soonyoung was the one who had his dick out.

Soonyoung _should_ die today from shame alone, if this guy doesn’t murder him first.

“No, I don’t think I did!” Soonyoung isn’t going to waste time arguing with a creep, obviously. He whips around, urgently picking up his phone from his dresser to dial a number.

“I’m _Wonwoo_ ,” the stranger says.

Soonyoung freezes. 

“What?” He turns back, doubting he heard right. 

When he sees that there’s now nothing but empty space where the stranger formerly stood, he begins to question if he’d witnessed _any_ of it, to begin with. He was gone. Just like that. Made no sound. Took no time, too. Like he just vanished into thin air with a snap of a finger.

The call is picked up. Soonyoung can’t respond for the life of him. What could he even say? He stands like a statue, bewildered, trying to make sense of _what_ just happened.

“What the fuck?” Soonyoung croaks again, like he’s run out of pages in his Kwon Soonyoung Phrase Book.

His head hurts like _hell_ now. He falls back onto his bed with the saddest little creaking noise, forgetting the call completely.

* * *

“What are you doing?” Jeonghan eyes him dubiously. 

“I’m... seeking…” Answers? Soonyoung doesn’t know what he’s seeking. “Something.”

“Aren’t we all.” Jeonghan lets it be, sighing a little. But not without adding, “for example, I’m seeking what you owe me when we supposedly split Mingyu’s gift last time.”

“Didn’t wanna get him that, anyway.” It’s this overpriced artsy shirt. But maybe Soonyoung just doesn’t “get” it.

“Too bad. _We_ got him it,” Jeonghan says. “Gotta pay up someday.”

“Yeah, yeah, I will.” 

Soonyoung is distracted from the conversation, too busy typing away into his laptop. It takes a lot more concentration for him; you have to understand this. He’s the type to use two fingers to type.

He googles “Jeon Wonwoo” and scans the results. For the first few hits, the search doesn’t prove fruitless in itself. He does learn a bunch of things about this Jeon Wonwoo character. Like, he’s got a Master’s in World Literature. Spoke at a conference in Paris. Yadda yadda. Boring stuff. 

He’s apparently a Big Deal for his age, where the nerd shit is concerned. So _of course_ , Soonyoung’s never heard of him. It’s all just lame information he’s scrolling through right now.

And then he comes across an article from almost a year ago.

Soonyoung stumbles backwards, the whole table quaking with him. His chair tips over, and Soonyoung lands on the floor sharply. He doesn’t register the soreness. 

It digs into his chest— this _suffocating_ sensation. There’s nothing there but him and Jeonghan and the interior of a café. Yet, he’s also inhaling smoke from fires and hearing crashes over this frightening blackness obscuring his line of sight. It’s paralyzing and it’s palpable, exactly like in his dreams.

“Soonyoung! Are you okay?” Jeonghan rushes to the other side of the table, alarmed. 

“I’m okay,” Soonyoung reassures him. He is slowly pulled upright with Jeonghan’s aid. “I’m okay,” he repeats. But his eyes are still glued to the article.

**_ALL 179 ABOARD DIE IN PLANE CRASH OFF THE HONG KONG COAST_ **

_… Among the identified victims were_ **_Jeon Wonwoo_** _, best known for …_

He stares blankly at his screen, the sound of Jeonghan’s voice becoming very distant.


	2. bridge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Soonyoung finds himself with an unlikely partner. He's not sure if there's a "getting used to it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello again! here's part 2, I hope you all enjoy! :D 
> 
> (and if you want to know, soonhui is established and I'll leave soonwoo to however you wanna interpret them. also, I'm almost done writing this so you can expect regular updates!) ok onto the fic!!

Soonyoung spends the next few days highly strung, not that he hadn’t already been prior. He’s on the lookout now, however. Watchful of every little corner, attentive to his dreams. 

The strangest part is that Soonyoung isn’t afraid. He’s _something_ , for sure; but whatever that something is, it isn’t afraid. He’s… curious, maybe. At some point, he finds that he awaits to see him again, especially knowing what he knows now.

There’s this troublesome instinct prodding at him — he can’t explain it — that tells him not to leave it at that. Not to leave Wonwoo alone.

And he appears again, just when Soonyoung had begun wondering where he’d gone. Just when Soonyoung had made peace with the fact that he was being haunted — if that’s something you make peace with.

“You!” Soonyoung jabs a finger at him, accusingly. He doesn’t know what he’s so angry about or what he’s accusing him for, actually. He’s tired of the surprises, so sue him if he gets all confrontational with this Wonwoo fellow.

Wonwoo is calm, raises his hands in defense. “Wait, relax—”

“I can’t!” Soonyoung exclaims. “I’m known for not relaxing, it’s my charm!”

Wonwoo grabs Soonyoung’s extended arm, guiding it back to Soonyoung’s side. “Seriously, stop. Unless you wanna look out of your mind,” he hisses. 

The two were in public now. Soonyoung was on a grocery run when Wonwoo had crashed into his vision and his peace yet again. Soonyoung looks around, and does indeed note a couple of shoppers eyeing him warily and skipping the aisle he’s at completely.

“Don’t they… Don’t they see you?”

“Only you see me,” Wonwoo answers. 

Soonyoung can actually see him now that they’re not under Soonyoung’s busted lightbulb, too. It also helps that they’re not in a distracting emergency where Soonyoung has his pants down. 

Wonwoo is young and looks it. His age, if he hadn’t passed. Good-looking, too. 

He’s got the type of face that was handsome, but just came off as unapproachable. You wouldn’t get near. It’s the type most would just admire from afar only because they wouldn’t ever get close enough, Soonyoung thinks. 

He had raven hair that fell over his forehead and was cut short neatly around the back. He also wore glasses — maybe a need back from when he was living that just stuck — and behind those lenses were these sharp eyes. Eyes like he was always appraising something. 

Well, Soonyoung had seen him wide-eyed and red as a tomato, so that impression has been preemptively qualified.

“Huh...” Soonyoung has _so_ many questions. But he’ll entertain… this. Whatever this is. He’s open-minded. (And if it _were_ a haunting, Soonyoung knows some people off of the internet who can deal with it, so he’s mighty prepared.) 

“Okay, sure. Sure. Cool. Cool, cool, cool. Wonwoo, right?”

Wonwoo blinks, not expecting Soonyoung to come around so quickly. “Uh, yeah.”

“Okay, so what do you want? My soul? Are you taking my soul back into heaven?”

Wonwoo’s eyebrows furrow. “What? No.” 

“My soul’s going to _hell?_ ” Soonyoung nearly cries, thrust into a bout of reflection. “But what did I even _do_? And what did _you_ do to—”

“What are you even talking about? I meant _no,_ you’re not dying,” Wonwoo says, exasperated. “And for the record, I don’t know why I’m here either.”

So there’s that. Man does Soonyoung wish it were a haunting. At least there’d be a relatively straightforward game plan. 

“But what if I’m just high?” Soonyoung wonders aloud. He moves closer to sniff Wonwoo. Unnerved, Wonwoo glares at him and steps away. 

“You don’t smell like weed,” Soonyoung confirms. “Or like my dealer. Who smells like weed, actually. Nevermind.”

Soonyoung looks down at his hands and then to the rows of cereal boxes on either side of him, trying to examine if he is, in fact, high. He doesn’t seem to be. “Good news, Wonwoo, I think you’re real.” 

He looks over his shoulder, and once again, Wonwoo is nowhere to be found. 

* * *

Soonyoung doesn’t see him again until he gets home. He never can anticipate these things. As soon as he opens the door, there’s Wonwoo lying comfortably on his couch. He squawks.

Wonwoo doesn’t even look up from the pocketbook he’s reading. He’d found it lying around somewhere there; it’s one of the only things you could read in Soonyoung’s home. 

“You’ll have to get used to it, man,” he says, too casually for Soonyoung’s tastes. “We’ll work on it.”

“Dunno if I can.” Soonyoung shuts the door behind him, surveying the near-stranger making home in his apartment. Wonwoo is a mixed bag, it seems. “Why’d you disappear on me?” 

“You were being weird,” shrugs Wonwoo.

Annoyed, Soonyoung ditches him for the open kitchen. Well _excuse_ him for being fucking _weird_ , you trespassing ghost. 

He bites his tongue. The bluntness, however, is refreshing — Soonyoung will admit that.

He gets water boiling in a pot, a pack of instant ramen from the grocery in hand. “Um, lunch?”

Wonwoo shifts from where he’s sprawled on Soonyoung’s springy couch. The couch peeps, high and squeaky. “No thanks. I’m—”

“Not hungry?”

“Dead.”

“Right,” Soonyoung says, clicking his tongue. He looks around, shifts the weight of his stance, taps at the counter. It’s so _awkward_. 

“I’m Soonyoung, by the way.”

“I know.”

The silence is uncomfortable, to say the least. Soonyoung doesn’t have people over often, either. He’s always crashing at someone else’s. The thought that there’s someone waiting for him at home when he’s away kind of blows his mind.

He mulls over the mechanics of it. Like, could Wonwoo phase through surfaces? Doesn’t seem like he can, but it would be cool.

Soonyoung fills the silence with his thoughts where the bubbling over the stove can’t. Before long, the water comes to a full boil, ready for his noodles to go into. A loud hiss, and the scalding water splatters on Soonyoung.

“ _Ow!_ ” 

At once, two voices react to the pain.

Soonyoung blinks at Wonwoo in surprise. “You feel what I feel?” 

Soonyoung peers at him from where he is, fascinatedly observing how Wonwoo is rubbing his hand at the exact spot where Soonyoung’s hand had been burnt. 

“Just sometimes,” replies Wonwoo with a grimace.

“Woah, that’s so trippy…”

He falls silent again, looking down, assuming the manner of someone brewing something up in his brain. Wonwoo raises a brow. 

Proving Wonwoo’s wariness valid, Soonyoung dips the tip of his finger into the hot surface of the water, recoiling nearly the very moment he does. Both of them yelp again.

“Why would you stick your finger in there!?” Wonwoo yells. His eyes are wide, an expression of utter disbelief on his face when he meets Soonyoung’s eyes. Understandable. 

“I was just checking!” Soonyoung yells back, defensive. “To be scientific!”

The look on his face does not get less judgmental or confused. And it shouldn’t. In fact, it was downright withering. “I swear, you just say and do anything.” Wonwoo sits up straight now, whereas he had been lounging like a house cat earlier. “Like in your job interview.” 

Not one of Soonyoung’s proudest moments, admittedly. Wonwoo had seen him that time, and who knows how many other times. Soonyoung’s annoyance rises, and not because Wonwoo saw, but because… Because Wonwoo. Period. There is just something about this man that is the human (or spirit?) equivalent of getting kicked in the balls and having your brain painfully squeezed dry all within minutes of meeting. “Ugh, were you unbearable alive too?”

“I don’t know,” Wonwoo says. Then he seems to remember the book in his hands. He lifts it to Soonyoung’s face. “By the way, are you aware that this is a rip-off of The Shining?” 

Soonyoung stares, incredulous. “So that’s probably a yes.”

He turns the stove off and stomps toward the door.

“Where are you going?” 

“For a walk, don’t follow me!”

Just like that, Soonyoung is through the door and he goes ahead, while Wonwoo does exactly what Soonyoung tells him not to. He’s walking briskly, which wouldn’t do anything if it turns out Wonwoo could teleport. He can’t, by the way, but what he does have is freakishly long legs.

“I have a question,” Soonyoung says when Wonwoo catches up to him. “Is there no one else you can haunt?”

“I’m not _haunting_ you. Why won’t you drop that?” Wonwoo replies. He says it like it’s a preposterous notion; like it was nowhere as weird as casually conversing with a dead guy. “And no, there’s only you. I told you, they can’t see me. And I can’t _make_ them see me.”

Wonwoo stops in his tracks, figuring he can try to demonstrate it. He approaches a stranger on the sidewalk — a middle-aged man with thinning hair — and waves his hands in front of his face. 

For the record, Wonwoo isn’t see-through or anything — the visual Soonyoung has is of a regular, corporeal person coming up to another in order to be but a nuisance, so if Soonyoung cringes awaiting the stranger’s response, it’s a natural, subconscious reaction. 

But the man doesn’t notice anything at all. He stares, far off, three donuts in hand, as if Wonwoo wasn’t _right_ in front of him. “Dude, how?” Soonyoung utters, dumbfounded.

It’s too late for him to remember that as far as anyone is concerned, Wonwoo is a figment of his imagination. 

The man glowers at Soonyoung, likely thinking him rude. Soonyoung can only smile sheepishly as he storms off. The sight of Soonyoung dejected gets Wonwoo’s nose scrunching in a little snicker.

Soonyoung quickly discovers this side to Wonwoo’s personality is more a rule than the exception. One would imagine that when you’re put into a situation such as this — a union between the living and the dead, that is — there’d hardly be any pretense you’d have to uphold. It is precisely the case for Soonyoung and Wonwoo.

To be fair, Wonwoo looked like he was a serious guy. (And he definitely sounded like it, if the paywalled journal article by Wonwoo that Soonyoung had tried scanning through for “research” was any indication.) 

Soonyoung doesn’t know if it’s a personal problem of his — if there’s something about him in particular that makes Wonwoo the way that he is. 

Wonwoo leaned against shelves and smugly watched as Soonyoung struggled to reach things. He would end up helping, yes, but only after getting the scowl of a lifetime. He laughed when Soonyoung looked like a fool in front of strangers too, often when Soonyoung would misspeak— his brain-to-mouth filter failed him sometimes. He also marveled at the sheer physical comedy of Soonyoung getting his hand stuck in a jar. Basically, he liked to taunt Soonyoung in whatever way he could, and not for anything else other than his amusement. 

A thorn in Soonyoung’s side, that guy. Wonwoo wouldn’t even keep his nose out of his shopping. The man was always over his shoulder, teasing. “You’re buying _that_?” he would go, derisive of just about any article of clothing Soonyoung plans to buy. He was maddening. 

Soonyoung suspects it was a personal mission of his to rile him up somehow. In fact, Soonyoung has formed a new theory, and it’s that Wonwoo was specially sent to him to test his waning patience.

But of course, Soonyoung wasn’t without a one-star review himself: Wonwoo’s theory is that Soonyoung was designed specifically to drive him out of wits. 

He says the darndest things Wonwoo isn’t even sure how to try to respond to, and does things like refuse to admit he’d accidentally mixed in salt instead of sugar into his coffee. 

He doesn’t like to lose to Wonwoo, you see, so he sipped on that crap like a champ pretending it was sweet the whole time, though the way his face crumpled up every time was telltale. 

Not to mention Soonyoung’s apartment was simply _dismal_. Wonwoo didn’t know where the bed ended and the laundry basket began. He couldn’t even make out the floor. 

That’s what hell would look like, Wonwoo thinks. He’s never been, bless his unrested soul, but now he is certain Dante was wrong about boiling rivers of blood and eternal smoky entombment. Probably every circle of hell resembles just another corner of the Kwon apartment.

Ah, yes. Life and the afterlife — equally hellish.

* * *

“How’d it go?” Jeonghan slides into the booth opposite Soonyoung, picking up the menu from the table once he settles in.

“What’s he referring to?” Wonwoo asks him. For the record, Soonyoung doesn’t forget that Wonwoo is right next to him. He just tries to ignore it. Why Wonwoo couldn’t have just gone back home, Soonyoung doesn’t know.

“No, ah…” Soonyoung begins, distracted by Wonwoo’s presence. “Don’t think Joshua’s place would have a fit for me, you know.”

“Why not?” Jeonghan questions.

“Like… Do you see me in an accounting firm? As anything?” Soonyoung responds. 

Wonwoo bursts out laughing from beside him. An _accounting_ firm. “No way,” he tells Soonyoung.

“I didn’t ask _you_ ,” Soonyoung hisses. He’s side-eyeing Wonwoo. 

Haven’t even responded yet, Jeonghan thinks to himself, narrowing his eyes at Soonyoung and the empty space next to him. Despite obviously being weirded out, he tries to ease back into normalcy and reassure Soonyoung, because for all the kinks in his personality, Jeonghan is sweet. “Uh, well. You have time, yeah?”

“Yeah.” Soonyoung mindlessly toys with the menu, Wonwoo scanning it with him as if he could order a burger for himself. 

Wonwoo gives him a dubious tilt of the head. “I don’t think you do? The landlord left a little surprise in the mailbox this morning.” He leans over to whisper to Soonyoung, even though Jeonghan wouldn’t even be able to hear him, much less see him.

“Oh my god,” Soonyoung exhales, exceedingly vexed by now. 

Jeonghan watches Soonyoung intently. He tries to decide in his head if it was anything he said or if it was just an unnecessarily hard decision between the chocolate milkshake or the strawberry one. 

Jeonghan arrives at no conclusion. “Hey, relax. You’re often so hard on yourself, you know,” he says, because regardless of whatever it is bothering Soonyoung currently, this has always been true.

“Honestly, yeah. The landlord system is questionable in itself, Soonyoung,” Wonwoo adds, before Soonyoung could say anything. “By the mere premise of ownership, they can extract profit out of people seeking a _necessity_ , while keeping costs as low as possible for themselves—” 

Soonyoung rubs his hands down his face.

It sets Jeonghan off. That is _it._ He gathers the menus and his wallet. “Okay, tell you what. Stay here, while I go order for us. You look… not good.”

Soonyoung can only thin his lips in a tight line as Jeonghan gets up from his seat. The moment Jeonghan walks off, he turns to Wonwoo with a face that has ‘ _what the fuck, dude’_ written all over it.

“I think he wanted to say ‘you look like shit,’” Wonwoo still _kindly_ informs Soonyoung, impervious to his glare. 

Consider his temper tested. Rigorously and comprehensively. Soonyoung isn’t a particularly patient guy, either, so there couldn’t have been a worse type of test for him. He also didn’t imagine he’d be so miffed to see that the mischievous ghost trope as he sees in movies was real. They should be more like Casper, and less like the type of douchebag who tries to predict how a movie will end _while_ you’re watching it.

Incensed and pushed to the walls now, he levels with Wonwoo. “Look, I have to say this once. Neither of us is easy to be around. And you’re new to this whole wandering spirit thing, I get it. Like, I’m new to aromatherapy.”

“Hardly the same thing,” Wonwoo says. “Not even in the same ballpark, I think.” 

Soonyoung ignores that. “But you _know_ right. You know it’s been almost a year.”

Soonyoung bites his lower lip. Soonyoung feels as if they’d been treading a tightrope like they would any other surface, having chosen not to address the hundreds of feet between them and the ground. He wants to address it.

Wonwoo tips his head, urging him on. A barely-there quiver of the lip tells Soonyoung he has an idea, and just refuses to acknowledge it.

“A year since you...” Soonyoung trails off, carefully gauging Wonwoo’s expression. Even with the jury out on Soonyoung’s command of his impulses, he wants to be gentle at least with this.

Wonwoo’s face falls ever-so-slightly, and only for a flicker of a moment, as if Soonyoung isn’t permitted to see Wonwoo like that. Which is ridiculous and a little bit sad, given Soonyoung is the only one who can see Wonwoo at all. 

Wonwoo steels himself, transparently trying to manage the look in his eyes. Soonyoung can’t help but see the weakness peak at the edges. Especially when Wonwoo quietly goes, “really?” 

_That long?_ Wonwoo fiddles with his hands.

Now Soonyoung and Wonwoo truly despise being stuck with each other. They bicker nonstop. They straight-up antagonize each other, even. Soonyoung feels a tinge in his heart for him nonetheless. 

“Yeah,” he swallows. “Look, I don’t care about the reason you’re stuck here. If it’s a bad reason or a good one.” Soonyoung pauses. Then, he backtracks. “Wait, okay, I might care if you killed someone...” He looks at Wonwoo expectantly, anxious for his outright denial.

Wonwoo rolls his eyes. “I didn’t.” 

“Cool, just checking. Anyway, just... I’m in a tight spot,” he continues.

“In terms of…?”

“In terms of _life_ , Wonwoo, can’t we make it bearable for each other?” 

“Understood,” sighs Wonwoo. “No more making a fool of you.” Wonwoo wears the disappointment plainly on his face, and Soonyoung finds himself a bit endeared that not fucking around at Soonyoung's expense disappoints him _this_ much.

“Great, and I’ll pick up my laundry from the floor.” Soonyoung grins. From afar, he spies Jeonghan returning with food. Soonyoung’s completely cheered up now, near dancing in his seat at the promise of fried chicken. It was a quick come down from his annoyance; the duality interests Wonwoo.

“Look at us, so healthy and communicative. Didn’t even need a spirit counselor or a medium or whatever,” Soonyoung says to Wonwoo, sing-song. 

Wonwoo leans back into the couch cushions. He is _certain_ no such laundry will be picked up.

* * *

“Where do you go?” 

Wonwoo looks up from where he’s perched on Soonyoung’s single, eyeing Soonyoung quizzically. He’s not sure what Soonyoung means exactly.

“Anywhere you go,” he answers anyway.

Soonyoung rolls his eyes. He knew _that._ Oh _man_ did he know that _._

“But when you’re not with me, where are you?” 

Wonwoo stops to think about all the places he’s been and things he’s done since he regained consciousness. 

_Where are you?_ Taking an aimless walk down the old, empty main street on a family holiday. (Where Soonyoung used to tepidly pass for work, though the long route did give him something new to notice every time.)

 _Where are you?_ Watching the river at that window of time in the morning just before joggers would awaken. (The same place Soonyoung had experienced his first real heartbreak, dealt by the clumsy words of a young boy leaving for a plane, and for another heart.)

 _Where are you?_ Listlessly sorting through packets of food he can’t eat at the convenience store near the highway, the light in the shop soulless as it flickered. (Right at the corner where Soonyoung had chased his first high with a more-than-friend.)

 _Where are you?_ Sitting idly on a swing at a playground long left in disuse. (Where Soonyoung had been left to play, as his father handled the call that came in from the city.)

“I can only ever go where you are, or where you _have_ been. Can’t go anywhere else.”

Soonyoung seems to ponder this. As he thinks it over, he pushes Wonwoo’s gangly legs out of the way to make space for him to sit on what is _his_ bed anyway. Nevermind that, though — Wonwoo simply adjusts himself, stretching his legs on top of Soonyoung’s lap this time. Soonyoung pays no mind.

What there is to ponder, Wonwoo isn’t sure. It’s straightforward. Wonwoo is fettered to this man’s existence, past and present.

“Then at least you can go to the library. I’ve been there. Once.”

Now, Wonwoo laughs. Wonwoo didn’t even really read or spend much time _in_ the library when he was alive, and definitely not since he graduated. However, he’ll admit to himself that he’s quite touched that Soonyoung seemed to be thinking of ways to make all this bearable for him.

“Mm, yeah. Truly exhilarating,” Wonwoo agrees, tone dripping with sarcasm. “Really gets the adrenaline pumping.”

“For you, I’ll bet.” Soonyoung gets up then, the sudden motion earning a sharp _oof_ from Wonwoo. In Soonyoung’s comfy absence, though, he reclines fully on the bed with a satisfied little smile.

Disappearing from the room to grab something, Soonyoung’s voice comes through the thin walls. “Well, I should tell you I’m going out tonight. Come. Or don’t. But I know you like looking over me.”

“Don’t make it sound like I’m your babysitter,” replies Wonwoo. However, Wonwoo did feel like that _could_ be true, even just based on their brief time together thus far. He keeps Soonyoung in line, he’d like to think. He’s not sure about being his babysitter, though. Perhaps a tamer. Like the ones in the circus. (Wonwoo means all this fondly, of course.)

“A date?” Wonwoo says, short of a whistle. 

Soonyoung emerges with a pair of new-looking sneakers. “Yeah, with Jun.”

_What._

Wonwoo scrambles up from where he’s lying down. 

“Jun?” Wonwoo parrots, struggling to make it seem like his world isn’t about to shatter. 

If Soonyoung is puzzled by Wonwoo’s reaction, the puzzlement only lasts a second. He continues, unbothered. “Yeah, my boyfriend. He’s back from a holiday in China. You know what, you’re kinda similar in a weird sort of way,” Soonyoung says, tying his shoes as he does. 

No, Wonwoo thinks. There’s no way.

“His name is Wen Junhui. I think you’d like him.”

Everything comes crashing.

Wonwoo is frozen. The air changes, and it’s so thick it’s tangible, pressing down on him to hold him in place even as Soonyoung talked. 

But Soonyoung’s voice is a mere echo — a ripple of noise that sounds like _Wen Junhui_ , over and over and _over_. Wonwoo can’t think. The revelation feels as though someone had thrown a bucket of ice water over his head.

“It’s getting serious. I think. I can’t get a good read, y’know? He’s lowkey emotionally constipated… Kinda like me, I guess, but we can sort that out.” Soonyoung looks at Wonwoo now, and he can’t help but notice the dismay. “Uh, sorry, I’m oversharing. Tell me if you hate it. Jeonghan loves me too much to tell me off, so. I thought you wouldn’t have the problem, though? Of telling me off, I mean.”

Wonwoo averts his eyes, and the seeming discomfort concerns Soonyoung. Wonwoo knows, because he sees the twitch of his hand like he’s about to reach out for him. Comfort. He doesn’t want it.

Wonwoo acts in a trice to rid himself of the possibility. He shakes his head. He quits avoiding Soonyoung’s eyes. He tries to smile. He’s sure it looks wrong. 

“No, it’s fine. That…” Far too rattled to get words out, Wonwoo has to pause. He _hates_ this. There’s just the worst feeling washing over him, blooming in his chest like a suffocating sickness.

(Wonwoo feels betrayed, too. A bit. Because only the dying part was supposed to hurt.)

Still, a feeble part of him wrestles all of that out. For now — for these short-lived minutes — it manages, albeit precariously. 

It has to manage for as long as it can, because… God. It’s been some time.

Some time since he’d gone. To a place where you don’t come back from.

There is no longer anything to lose. No longer a stake here. 

“That sounds great,” Wonwoo murmurs. “I'm—” 

He wrings his empty hands. _I have no right anymore._

“I'm sure he's great.”

Wonwoo stiffly tells him to have fun, and every minute Soonyoung spends still around him is downright excruciating. Eventually, he leaves Wonwoo alone in his apartment. 

It must have been forever before he did. It must have been forever before the door shut and Wonwoo could finally melt into the headboard and strip down the feigned, numbing smile. 

He lets out a shaky breath. He just wasn’t ready.

He has his knees drawn up to his chest, making himself small, his head hidden in his lap. 

He _isn’t_ ready.

* * *

If Wonwoo had to put what it’s like into words, it’s a lot like napping at noon and waking up thinking it’d only been hours, when you’d just awoken into a new day. 

So far, he’d just been distracted by how light he feels on his feet. In love with the privacy he’s afforded even when in public. Calmed by the fact that time has seemingly stopped, at least for him. Swept up completely by Soonyoung’s person.

And therein lies the buffer. It’s all so convenient: the mood swings, the questionable habits, the stupid questions. Soonyoung wasn’t _why_ he did, but he made it so damn easy to prolong facing the irrevocable truth of his existence. 

He wasn’t even sure until recently if this world was real or just a simulation in his afterlife. Or maybe he was _still_ in the process of dying, and this is just his brain going haywire before it finally expires. The point is, he thought it might not be real. Any of it.

But _Jun_. 

If Jun’s here, he almost wants it to be real. 

(Which shouldn’t be. He shouldn’t want that. 

Not for himself. 

Not when Jun’s heart still continues to beat, while he’s barely a whisper in the air.)

After that day, Wonwoo falls into silence. It should be more or less seamless, since Soonyoung had mentioned before that Wonwoo seemed “broody” at first glance. He looked to the comfort of Soonyoung’s home when it was Soonyoung-less, most of the time. Perhaps it was a way to feel like himself again, though the concept of the self becomes murky when you’re at the junction between being gone and still being _here_. 

Sometimes, when Soonyoung’s away, he’ll feel him.

Or something about him.

The coldness of the room he’s in, for example. It racks Wonwoo’s body, rousing goose pimples down his arms. He’d feel it the whole time, even when he’d opened the window in Soonyoung’s room to let the sunlight in. There’s also the feel of soft fur under his palm to make Wonwoo imagine what animal or whose pet Soonyoung had just come across. 

There’s a lot: the wind kissing his face on an overcast day. The slight sting of an overly-enthusiastic clap on the back. The tingle on his lips. Wonwoo feels so much. It’s sort of dreadful.

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), Soonyoung’s caught on with the shift. The thing is, Wonwoo has spent a life maintaining perfectly cultivated walls. Soonyoung didn’t have to crash through anything like other people did when Wonwoo was alive, because nothing was in place when Wonwoo suddenly emerged in the world again. Now, Wonwoo has to rebuild.

It doesn’t sit right with Soonyoung, Wonwoo being like a glorified hostage in his home and to his life in general. Neither of them knows why he’s here, why it had to be them, and they couldn’t be any more different, but none of that matters — Soonyoung finds he vaguely cares about him. (Yes, it surprises him, too.)

“Is there something you want to do?” Soonyoung asks him one day.

“What?” 

Wonwoo is genuinely taken aback by the question, like it would be so out of the ordinary for Soonyoung to even ask. Soonyoung refuses to let it dampen his spirit.

“We only ever do my stuff, so.” Soonyoung shrugs. He’s losing confidence by the second. “Do you wanna go somewhere? I mean, since you can only go to places I’ve been.” 

“I like being home, don’t worry,” Wonwoo tells him, and it’s not untrue. Wonwoo has never in his lifetime minded staying indoors. It’s the same now. “And you don’t have to worry about it?” He adds. He’s literally dead. Wonwoo doesn’t know if he’d be accommodating to a stranger’s apparition himself. Logically, he supposes, he’d get the exorcism or whatever out of the way immediately. (For the record, he’s not sure what they do exactly — he’s never believed in ghosts or anything like that. A bit of poetic justice, then, for him to turn into something he didn’t believe in.)

It didn’t matter how nonchalantly Wonwoo had spoken, because Soonyoung still managed to look upset about it. Upset _for_ Wonwoo.

“I guess.” The frown is just so real on Soonyoung’s face. 

Wonwoo bites his lip. He groans internally, thoroughly disliking how easily sympathy sways him. This sort of thing always happens to Wonwoo, despite appearances.

“The aquarium,” Wonwoo says, finally.

That enlivens Soonyoung. He blinks at Wonwoo, having just been resigned to the fact that Wonwoo would leave it.

“Have you ever been?” Wonwoo asks.

“No, I haven’t.”

“I have, but I always like going again.” Wonwoo allows himself a small smile.

They go on a weekday when there are fewer people, and Soonyoung pays the entrance fee for one even as Wonwoo enters with him unnoticed. They walk through tunnels, stingrays swimming over their heads. At the heart of the building is where they gawk at this glass that scaled floors upon floors, behind which colorful fins and corals abounded. 

Soonyoung hasn’t been, so Wonwoo is watching the sea creatures as much as he is watching the sincere fascination dance on Soonyoung’s face. It wouldn’t be Wonwoo without an unprompted trivia or two, so he does still say things along the lines of, “did you know that prehistoric sea turtles like the Archelon were as big as cars and date back to hundreds of millions of years ago, which means they probably coexisted with the dinosaurs?” 

And Soonyoung listens. He listens, and then he goes on about how it would be cool to have a pet sea turtle. It’s charming, so Wonwoo _doesn’t_ say that it’d “definitely be illegal” and that he’d be “better off getting a turtle from a pet store and naming it Raphael like everyone else.”

Wonwoo enjoys their time there; there’s no catch or qualifiers needed. It’s simple, and he’s happy. It’s nice to be somewhere that was, in a sense, his. It’s even nice that it’s now also Soonyoung’s.

Yet, Wonwoo would find himself staring at the glass and seeing nothing in front of him, and a patent wistfulness snakes around him. He sees no reflection of his face next to Soonyoung’s, and for the first time since he appeared, he just aches. He aches to exist. 

They’re in the jellyfish room when Wonwoo gathers his nerve. He asks Soonyoung what he loves about Jun, because some part of him thought this could be like pulling the knife out. It'll be easier once all this is sharply pulled from where it’s lodged in his chest.

Soonyoung turns around with eyes the slightest bit widened. He laughs nervously, and goes _what kinda question is that_ , balking. Wonwoo only keeps his hand in his pockets. He doesn’t retract the question; he keeps it afloat in the blues. 

Pushed completely off-center by Wonwoo’s peculiar resolve, Soonyoung trains his eyes on the exhibit, awkwardly rattling off plenty of reasons as to why _anyone_ should love Jun.

He makes people lose their minds laughing sometimes. He’s smart, and about different things; not just one thing. He’s playful, and yet Soonyoung knows nobody quite as considerate or attentive.

It’s not what Wonwoo asked for — not really. Soonyoung reflects, shrouded by a wall of bioluminescence. 

“To me, he’s…” His words threaten to get lost in this manmade sea. “He’s music,” decides Soonyoung.

The moment he says it, he cringes and he turns pink at the ears. It must come off as nonsense. He wards off the embarrassment, but the vibrant glow around him swallows it all up so that all Wonwoo can make out is the thundering honesty of it.

Wonwoo’s heart swells, like the notes do in like the climax of a song.

* * *

Wonwoo remembers too much, too often. It’s a detriment. When things happen, they happen _to_ him. Not in the sense that he takes them personally. Just in the sense that for better or for worse, he keeps them in his heart.

He thinks of a tune. 

It starts softly, bare notes across a keyboard. The melody comforts — it often does. Chipper, but deeply layered. Keys twinkling. An ode to youth, and at the same time, a song of promise. 

It’s endlessly familiar. It sounds like _Jun_. 

Wonwoo hears it in his head. Sometimes, he’ll hum it. He’ll think of the chords, skilled hands across the ivory, a quiet corner of a shared home.

Except now, at the back of his mind, there are also Soonyoung’s words.

_He’s music._

* * *

Train rides back used to make Wonwoo sleepy. 

He’s as awake as ever when they get off their stop, and together, they take a detour home. Down this new path, Soonyoung had gasped at this one-story, unkempt bougie-looking building smack in the middle of the high street. 

“Dare you to break in,” Wonwoo challenges, standing beside him. 

“Oh, why would you do that?” Soonyoung whines, acting as if a childish ‘I-Dare-You’ equated to getting trapped in this lifelong oath he just _had_ to uphold at all costs.

Wonwoo shrugs. “Hey, at least it’s abandoned and disgusting. I doubt anyone would care.” 

Soonyoung is starting to believe that Wonwoo is _both_ the angel and the devil on his shoulders. He considers the proposition. 

“What’s the worst thing you’ll find? A scary dead guy?” Wonwoo gives him a playful smile; the type that quirks on one side. Wonwoo’s smile really is a boyish and handsome one, Soonyoung thinks.

Soonyoung acquiesces. He breaks into a grin and goes ahead. “You do this a lot? I'd be surprised if this wasn’t how you died.”

“No, just once. Someone dared us. I’m not an idiot,” scoffs Wonwoo. He follows from behind. “Anyway, I think I usually was a stickler for rules.”

“Oh, that sure is surprising,” comes Soonyoung’s unsurprised reply. Wonwoo punches at his shoulder. 

“Ow!” Are the supposedly immaterial supposed to hit that hard?

The two climb over the fence, not that it was exceptionally hard to. For one thing, it’d been dilapidated and there was next to nothing to climb over. 

Once inside, Wonwoo takes to curiously exploring the premises. Soonyoung is a little bit creeped out by the whole place, if he’s honest, so he takes little steps and keeps to the light of his smartphone. 

Wonwoo gravitates to a wall of shelves. On these shelves were a variety of trinkets. The place was dusty and plunged into near-complete darkness, so it wasn’t easy to figure out what each one was. At the corner of his eye, though, he catches the gleam of _something_. Piqued, Wonwoo grabs it and blows dust off it. He inspects it, and it’s unmistakable.

The initials engraved onto the back, the shape, the white gold plating.

It’s the Jeon family pocket watch. 

So _this_ is where it went all these years.

It belonged to a great great grandfather or someone from the upper branches of their family tree. He or she had gotten it on a trip around the world, allegedly, and it was passed generations down to his father and then to him. It got stolen even before he left for Paris, and it was the one thing Wonwoo never got over losing. He’s overcome with joy to find it again — and only slightly upset he can’t keep it this time.

He sighs quietly, and it beckons Soonyoung’s attention. “What’s that?” 

“My family’s pocket watch. What are the odds?” Wonwoo is turning it over in his hands, a soft nostalgic smile coming to grace his face in the dark. 

“Hey, Soonyoung,” Wonwoo calls, after a moment of rumination. Soonyoung walks over cluelessly, shining light on where they both stood. 

“I mean, I don’t know if it’s something that appeals to you, and I barely knew you but… I just thought, I can’t leave it with just anyone.” Wonwoo fidgets. “I think you should keep it.”

Soonyoung’s face lights up as he reaches an epiphany of sorts. “ _Oh_ , ‘cause we’re soulmates.” 

“I don’t like putting it like that,” mutters Wonwoo.

“Come on, it’s literal. Like, look, your soul has no choice but to be with mine. Soulmates.” Soonyoung sees Wonwoo nod begrudgingly. Okay, point taken. “Also, it doesn’t have to be romantic, you know.” 

“Didn’t used to think they were a thing, is all.”

“No? That’s fair. Me too, I guess. Though if they were a thing, I always thought Jun would be mine,” Soonyoung mentions offhandedly, now looking through the shelves.

Wonwoo swallows hard. For Christ’s _sake_ , there is no way he can be made to deal with this. “So, yeah, it’s yours,” Wonwoo in one breath, like he’s in a hurry. Hastily, he shoves the pocket watch into Soonyoung’s hands. 

He turns away and proceeds first, anxious to extricate himself from having to concern himself over anything about Jun, or Jun and Soonyoung.

“Cool.” For a while, Soonyoung just stares at it, admiring it. Save for some dirt (which is nothing a thorough wiping can’t solve), it’s good as new. No dents or weathering evident on its surface. It’s gorgeous. 

He gets teary, too, and maybe it’s the rush of these memories that aren’t his. It could be because he’s gotten an influx of borrowed memories and meaning, upon feeling the watch’s heft in his hands. 

That, or he’s just moved. It’s unreal to think that Wonwoo trusts him to have one of the last few mementos of his life. 

* * *

  
“What do you keep groaning about?”

Wonwoo had returned from a walk not long ago to find Soonyoung agonizing over something, hunched over his desktop like a madman.

Soonyoung sighs, his whole body sagging against the backrest. “I’m… I’m applying for this job,” he answers, rubbing at his temples. “As a dance instructor. Nothing big. Small studio down the street. They’re hiring.” He’s instantly defensive of it, but it’s only because it matters to him. Wonwoo can tell; Soonyoung is the type to be physically unable to keep his excitement in. 

Wonwoo hadn’t asked, but was very interested to hear about it regardless. “Okay,” he says. “So?”

“ _So_ cover letters should be made illegal.”

Wonwoo raises an eyebrow. “You’re despairing over… a cover letter?”

“Well, nobody reads them anyway,” Soonyoung replies. “Jeonghan said so. He works in HR.”

“ _I_ read them,” counters Wonwoo.

Soonyoung makes a sour face at him that communicates, _of course you do._

“I’ll help,” Wonwoo proposes, shrugging. Wonwoo has had to write a good deal of them in the past for a scholarship, a grant, a fellowship— what have you. It isn’t fun but it’s easy, and he’s got a good success rate anyway, so he thought, might as well. 

“You will?” My nerd in shining armor, Soonyoung thinks.

“Yeah, come on.” Wonwoo makes his way over. He rests a hand on the seat and the desk, nearly bracketing Soonyoung. Soonyoung gives him a questioning look. 

“Move,” Wonwoo orders. “You type so slow.”

Soonyoung types strictly with his two index fingers, so it can’t be any surprise. In any case, Soonyoung follows, obediently transferring his person to the bed. 

While Wonwoo types, Soonyoung figures he’ll just sit and watch. But not quietly.

“You never come with me when I go out with Jun by the way. Why’s that?” He questions, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed.

Wonwoo winces. 

He inhales sharply through his nose, and pushes his glasses up the ridge of his nose. He does know better. He knows that it’s only Soonyoung wanting to know if his “soulmate” approves of his boyfriend. Which, admittedly, is a weird premise enough in itself — Wonwoo needs not to further muddy the waters.

“You don’t have trouble starting shit around the barista or Jeonghan or whoever, anyway.” Soonyoung mindlessly plays with the threads on Wonwoo’s jacket. 

Wonwoo snorts. “Like I would want to third wheel.” That’s not exactly a lie, but that surely isn’t all of it.

But Soonyoung leaves it at that. Thankfully.

It doesn’t take a while before it’s done, and Soonyoung being Soonyoung (that is, naturally affectionate through touch rather than words) shows his thanks by pulling Wonwoo into a hug. He goes, _yay!_ and Wonwoo has to awkwardly hug back.

Wonwoo doesn’t hate it. In fact, it makes him realize that he… misses it. So _badly_. As he buries his head into Soonyoung’s shoulder for the briefest of moments, he uncovers a yearning. 

To be held and to hold; the warmth of another. He had been unwittingly longing for those things lost, and he didn’t even realize.

(In Soonyoung’s arms, he finds an anchor. He finds proof. Like this, Wonwoo is real.)

He can’t help but melt into the embrace, and be the one to lament letting go. Pretending like it wasn’t him who had held on tightly, he turns back first and tries to play it off coolly. 

Wonwoo thumbs at his own wrist absently, feeling no pulse, and mind drifting to how he could feel the thudding rhythm of Soonyoung’s heart. 

* * *

Soonyoung’s hand travels down from the side of Jun’s face to rest on his hip. He chases Jun’s lips, and Jun braces, laying a palm flat on the space near Soonyoung’s thigh. His fingers inch up his leg, falsely coy, but are interrupted by this hard bump in Soonyoung’s pocket. Jun pulls away, both for air and because he’s curious. 

When he sees it, he’s stunned. Moving before his thoughts can catch up to him, he fumbles for the watch from Soonyoung’s pocket. “Where did you get this?”

Soonyoung blinks at the pocket watch now in Jun’s hand, having just been kissed stupid and hence needing a few moments for him to remember he even has it. 

“From a looter’s old storage,” Soonyoung _kind of_ lies. It was given to him, more accurately, but the storage _is_ in fact where he and Wonwoo saw it. “Finders keepers?” 

“You—” Jun seems thoroughly unsettled, and a little frustrated, because there’s no way Soonyoung could understand why. “You can’t just do that.” 

“But you said you do it. Sometimes.” Soonyoung innocently takes it back from Jun’s grasp. Jun looks somewhat disheartened to be parted from it.

“I said I did it. Once. On a dare.” 

Soonyoung shifts, feeling put on trial all of a sudden. It’s embarrassing at this age, yes, but Soonyoung owns up to it nonetheless. “I was on a dare.” 

“It’s— it’s different,” Jun says, moving back a fraction. 

Soonyoung is honestly too confused to be pissed. “How?”

Jun eyes the watch, like its presence offends him — or pains him — somehow. “Because _that’s_ —” 

Jun sighs. He reads Soonyoung’s expression, and realizes it appears like he’s freaking out for nothing. He shakes his head, willing the tenseness in his body out. “Sorry, it’s nothing.”

Soonyoung frowns, worried. “Jun, hey…” 

But Jun just smiles at him, apologetic. “Are you hungry?” He says instead. “I made tacos.”

“Oh, um.” Soonyoung pauses. He isn’t even sure what to begin to question. “Okay,” is all he’s able to say, because Jun’s already getting up to fetch said food. 

Soonyoung sinks into his seat, dumbfounded as he watches Jun go. The sight of his retreating back had looked... lonely.

* * *

Wonwoo had just put Soonyoung’s laptop away. With this much time on his hands, there’s a ton of series he’s since rewatched, and he’d need a bit of a break in between each one. Come 4 am in the morning, he just counts the hours lying back on Soonyoung’s bed. 

Soonyoung told him he’d be staying the night at Jun’s and instructed Wonwoo not to trash the kitchen while he was gone, which Wonwoo thought was a pretty hypocritical thing to ask of him. He has half the mind to do it anyway just to spite him.

The boredom, Wonwoo is good at dealing with. He doesn’t get hungry, which is also great. Little mercies.

If there’s anything he can _still_ sense in this state, though, it’s the cold. If anything, he’s become more sensitive to it. Of course it’d get chilly as they entered the tail-end of the year. Soonyoung’s long-broken heater did nothing to mitigate the situation, either. 

Wonwoo has the windows sealed shut, but the biting air weasels its way inside and blankets over the walls, over the steel bars the bed stands on, and over Wonwoo. Why he can feel _this_ , but not taste the sweetness of his childhood strawberry yogurt drink, he doesn’t question. Death is often characterized as a cold and hollow thing, he knows. So Wonwoo puts up with the shivering, stiffly turning in Soonyoung’s bed and rumpling his sheets.

Sometimes, when Soonyoung’s away, he’ll feel him.

Or something about him.

Someone wraps their arms around Soonyoung. 

Wonwoo feels it: the feather-light kiss on his temple, the soft press of fingers on his forearm, the breath against his nape. 

Wonwoo settles into the warmth — or tries to, because there’s only really him and Soonyoung’s bed. His hand itches to search for another, ultimately grasping at nothing. 

If he whispers _Jun_ out loud right now, would he somehow hear it?

Wonwoo breathes in. He vaguely feels like crying — but he doesn’t. He squeezes his eyes shut. At least it’s warm now. 

* * *

Six — the hours it takes for Jun’s special pork loins to cook on low, the times they’ve caught a street cat sneak into the building, the number of stops before Soonyoung’s hometown, and the number of moles on Jun’s face.

Jun’s eyes are closed in slumber, and Soonyoung counts six.

In the dim light of the room, his face is peacefully undisturbed, the line of his brows smoothened and mouth parted. He’s lightly snoring, still completely under. Soonyoung smiles fondly, and reaches to tuck stray hair behind his ear. 

After a little while, he rolls over onto his back. He contemplates going back to Wonwoo — not that Wonwoo _can’t_ be alone. Wonwoo’s been demonstrated to be great at it — being alone, that is — and, in any case, he’s not Wonwoo’s keeper. 

He still decides to get up, yawning as he does. He lovingly lets Jun remain asleep. He figures he should, especially since something seemed to shake him so last night.

Sunlight seeps in, laid out on places where Soonyoung steps en route the kitchen. He realizes he doesn’t know where anything is there. The fact that Jun just has so much _stuff_ further complicates the task at hand. 

The task at hand is to locate the coffee grinder, and Soonyoung checks the mini cabinets under the counters for it. 

What he finds are a bunch of things that are unfortunately _not_ the coffee grinder, and this curious box stashed away behind everything. He’s never seen it before, so he takes it out of the cabinet.

He wasn’t trying to snoop at first, truthfully. He thought it might be there, is all. That’s why he looks through the contents of the box. 

There are quite a number of knick-knacks inside, most of which are these kitty paperweights. They could be Jun’s, but Jun has never been the type to become so attached he’d get the whole collection of something. And that’s what it was — a whole collection, with the Siamese, the Persian, the Maine Coon, all the breeds. Soonyoung picks up the Shorthair, smiling. Jun probably liked this one. 

He also finds a necklace with a ring in place of a pendant, and then a couple of books under them. He moves those out of the way, and still under are photographs.

A good number are of sceneries. Some around the city, some of the snow-capped mountain a road trip away, some of Jun’s old university, and still others. Much of the rest were of Jun.

The shots are pretty, simple, and — in a way that should be hard to communicate through photos — heartfelt? They evoke nostalgia in Soonyoung, who has never been there for any of them. 

There’s Jun putting the fish he caught back into the waters. Jun’s profile over the window of a moving vehicle. The visual of Jun’s back playing the piano. Most of them were taken candidly. 

Which must have been a difficult task or at least a rare occurrence, because Jun always _knows_ when he’s getting taken a picture of. He’ll almost always pose for the camera immediately. The thought, as well as some of the pictures, make Soonyoung chuckle quietly to himself.

Soonyoung feels a specific kind of joy looking through them. It’s intriguing to see the Jun before he knew him catalogued in photos. He reaches the bottom of the pile.

And Soonyoung’s heart stops.

It’s unmistakable. 

There’s Jun — grinning wide, bangs a bit too shaggy, and looking so in love it was unfair. 

And next to him, hair tousled, so happy, so _alive_ — 

Soonyoung withholds his breath. 

“Wonwoo.”


	3. refrain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everyone has some truths to confront.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realized I left this unupdated for so long, sorry! (my thesis got in the way >.<) But I hope you enjoy! <3

That night, Soonyoung dreams of freshly-painted walls, rooms swathed in rays of sun, and sweat trickling down the neck.

It looks like Jun’s place, but different— _new_. The place is bare. There are boxes upon boxes where the living room should be, and Soonyoung is eager to make it their space. Jun is the same.

The temperature is unforgiving, however; its humidity inhibits all movement. They take a much needed break from lugging their belongings around in the relentless daylight, sitting cross-legged on the empty floor. In the trifling heat, they sip on some icy lemonade, and it’s liquid gold — the cold sweetness greets their heated bodies like an elixir.

Jun’s birthday was in the summer, like his. But Jun’s came first.

Jun wipes the sweat off his brows, and it’s the exertion and the weather that’s responsible for it; though he admits he’s a little nervous, too. “Sorry, I never really give gifts, so I didn’t know if…” 

“Oh, Jun, you didn’t have to,” Soonyoung says, but the words feel detached. 

In front of Soonyoung is a collection of books that he somehow knows are a personalized, limited edition reprinting. Wordlessly, he touches the leather of its covers.

“Is it stupid?”

“No, idiot,” Soonyoung smiles, holding one in both hands. He starts to get emotional, and he doesn’t know what to do with that except look down at the gift in adoration. “It’s _great_. I love it, thank you. I don’t know what to say.”

Soonyoung glances up to see the relief soften Jun’s eyes. His chest seizes up, and it spurs him to crawl to where Jun is, mindful of the lemonade pitcher in his way. 

He feels how Jun kisses. The dream world notwithstanding, he feels it with every fiber of his being. There’s this special pining that hasn’t dwindled. It’s still there, burning, but at the same time, Jun’s careful, and Jun is content that he has him. Soonyoung gleans this all from the feel of his lips and the way his hands reach for him — and Soonyoung _hurts_. 

He hurts, because the kiss — and all that it conveyed — were ultimately not for him.

Those things in the boxes were another’s possessions. The books arranged in front of him had a different name engraved on them. This space, that they will take time to settle in and make their own, was a blank canvas for someone else’s brush. 

This moment — as real as it feels to him — was simply not his. 

* * *

“Thought you weren’t getting up.” 

The deep voice frays his sleep away totally. It’s the first thing he hears when he wakes up. His heavy eyelids open to the sight of Wonwoo grinning down at him. “It’s noon.”

He sits up, burying his face into his hands. He hears Wonwoo chuckle over him. It seeds a sickening thing in his gut that’s a lot like guilt, but isn’t exactly. 

Wonwoo is humming a tune, carefree, stepping away to arrange who-knows-what things by the door. That has never been such a distressing sound for Soonyoung before. Every little show of happiness from this man is honestly one scrunch of the nose short of tearing Soonyoung apart. 

His head is all wrong— it’s messed up in every which way, and Soonyoung hasn’t ever even had one of those dreams with _Jun_ in them before. He can recall it vividly, and when he looks at Wonwoo now, it’s all he can think of.

“I’m going out,” Wonwoo informs him. Soonyoung nods, without a word. It fazes Wonwoo, just a bit, but he chalks it up to tiredness. He ruffles Soonyoung’s hair, and then he’s off.

Soonyoung remains in bed long after Wonwoo’s gone. He thinks of the photos in Jun’s hidden box. He thinks of the books in the donation pile at the bookstore. He thinks of Jun. He thinks of _Wonwoo_.

He thinks of how he would have woken up on a day-to-day basis: was he a light sleeper? Could he sleep for sixteen hours straight? What about eating habits? Did he like to eat spicy food? 

He imagines Wonwoo walking around the neighborhood, like he does now, except Soonyoung wouldn’t be the only one who could see him. The neighborhood cats would see him, for one. They’d recognize him and nuzzle into his hand, which would have made Wonwoo really happy when he was alive, Soonyoung would think. 

Soonyoung thinks of the people he had in his life, the dreams he must have held in his heart, all the things he still had to offer. Wonwoo’s old life just hadn’t ever felt this close to him before. It’s agony. (For everyone involved, he’d assume.)

Most of all, he thinks of how Jun was — probably _is_ — in love with him. The harshest part of it all is that Soonyoung can see why. Oh boy, can he see why. 

Wonwoo is, Soonyoung believes, precisely the kind of person Jun is meant to fall in love with. He’s witty. He’s attentive. He’s disarming when he’s trying — when he’s all grins and smart-alecky quips. But the same can be said about him when he’s not trying — when he’s lost in a task, so focused it rounds his lips into a pout, and he has to be pulled out of his reverie. 

Wonwoo is shockingly patient and gentle, like he navigates the world with natural restraint, afraid that if carved his way through it, something would be harmed. He’s also so deeply sentimental that he comes up with ways to try to keep it under wraps. 

Soonyoung knows this — all of this — and he hates that he does. He knows this; he knows it _firsthand_ , and something about that just makes it the worst feeling in the world. 

He doesn’t want to see Jun again; not like this. His heart is in disarray and it could all just… fuck up. And maybe — he thinks as he remembers the look in Jun’s eyes in his dream and how Soonyoung has never been loved quite like that in his own life — it’s supposed to fuck up. Maybe it _isn’t_ supposed to be him and Jun. Maybe it’s in the blueprint of this life.

But _fuck_ the blueprint, right?

Soonyoung worries a thumbnail between his teeth. He’s not so sure anymore.

* * *

As of late, Jun was, to Soonyoung, the one certainty in this ambiguous sea of uncertainties. He’s always been an anchor. A tree. A line. The gleam of a lighthouse from a distance. 

Now, if there’s anything one could say is remarkable about Soonyoung, it’s his propensity to fuck with fate. 

When he was born, his grandmother had prophesied he’d meet a nice girl from a wealthy family in his green years and marry her at a young age. Instead, Soonyoung spends much of his early adulthood kissing not-so-nice boys in pitiful rooms, all of them spending semesters away from family. 

In his junior year of high school, he’d broken an ankle and for months had to sit things out. He was the captain of the track team, not because he was spectacularly fast, but because people liked him enough to want to be led by him. Morale was low without him, but they told him not to run. He still did, and they ended up placing against all odds.

This was the type of thing he’s always done. He did it when he moved from the countryside to the city and all the people back at home said he wouldn’t survive a day. He did it when he struggled as a student and got told that perhaps the degree wasn’t for him, but then ended up graduating top of his program. He didn’t let these things go, because by nature, Soonyoung _couldn’t_. There isn’t an outcome, then, where he can let Jun go. 

But it does feel a little wrong this time. Soonyoung liked crashing into places where he wasn’t welcome. That isn’t the problem here. The problem is this.

Wonwoo comes along to drop off this adapter (that Soonyoung had always forgotten to return) at Mingyu’s because Soonyoung had let it slip that Mingyu had just adopted a baby pug, and Wonwoo would very much like to see it. 

They’re turning the corner where Jun’s (and Wonwoo’s) apartment complex is located, and Soonyoung carries on. Mingyu lived way closer to the city center, after all. However, Wonwoo falters behind him. A subtle thing. He pauses at the crossroads to take a peek. 

The pull must have been strong. See, in all of his stay back on earth, he hasn’t been anywhere that feels like home. 

And that — at the far end of the street, on the twelfth floor — was his home. Wonwoo squints at it, as if trying to make out the veranda. Soonyoung understands all these little ticks now. Ignorance truly is bliss.

“Hey, you good?”

Wonwoo nods. “All good.” He continues walking.

“Does— does your boyfriend live nearby?” It’s masked as casual. Though poorly. Wonwoo squirms unnoticeably, hands in his pocket, head bowed as he walked.

Sooyoung can’t find the humor in this situation. “Pretty close. Jun lives down the street.”

Soonyoung points, and Wonwoo traces the path with his eyes. Wonwoo lets the line of his lips curve. He must have been worried that he’d gone, or that it was no longer theirs. 

Don’t worry, Soonyoung thinks. It’s still yours. 

Every corner, even though the pictures are all taken down. Down to the color of the curtains— purple. Everything. Still yours. None of it has ever stopped being yours.

* * *

It’s raining out, but the sky isn’t angry with it yet. The rainfall brings nothing but a slightly dimmer shade to the clouds, and soft tapping sounds on the window. The tapping sounds abound, because curled on Soonyoung’s side is Jun, tapping away on his phone.

Soonyoung is more invested in the movie on the screen. Well, he was more enthusiastic about the whole premise of a garden gnome outing of a Shakespearean play and a Conan Doyle classic, anyway. Because of the gnomes, of course. They could have done something else other than take on Gnomeo’s cinematic journey, but they both figured the gloomy weather was conducive for it.

Soonyoung can’t focus, though. He bounces his legs, restless. From where he is, he sees the cabinet in the kitchen, and he shakes his head at the stubborn thought of the photographs. 

Sherlock Gnomes is introduced into the story, and he still can’t stop remembering what this place looked like in his dreams, empty and humid. If he so much as closes his eyes, he’ll feel like he’s out of his own body. It’s too much.

“The guy before me. The one you said was the first person you took seriously. It wasn’t just some months, was it,” Soonyoung says suddenly, at wit’s end.

Jun freezes. Soonyoung flinches, tongue burnt by his own searing statement.

The expression on Jun’s face is inscrutable when he twists to face him. Panic floods Soonyoung’s system. 

“God, sorry. I’m sorry, you don’t have to answer that,” Soonyoung rushes to say. Soonyoung’s all over the place. 

Jun bites his lip. He’s also playing with his hands, apprehensive, and Soonyoung mirrors the motion.

“No,” he says, finally. “I think I do, Soonyoung.”

Soonyoung waits with bated breath. He feels vulnerable — knowing and not knowing makes all the difference. 

He’s going to hear it from Jun. 

He realizes he somehow doesn’t want to.

“It was longer,” Jun admits. 

“Like a year? Two years?” 

Jun swallows. Then, in a softer voice, “like five.”

Soonyoung doesn’t know what to say or even think of that. He sits, the force of the confession bending his posture into a slump. 

_Wonwoo_ , is all he thinks. Must have been why he dutifully avoided anything that could remotely have anything to do Jun. Soonyoung can’t imagine what it’s like.

Jun isn’t done yet. This next part, Soonyoung actually knows.

“But Soonyoung, he’s—” Jun pauses. He manages what he’s about to say. There’s a difference between him and Jun, Soonyoung supposes. Soonyoung will just speak. 

“Soonyoung, I’ve been thinking…” He almost loses the words, or the nerve. 

Almost. 

“I have a lot to tell you.”

“So tell me,” Soonyoung says, weakly.

So Jun does. He tells Soonyoung the things Soonyoung has already known. 

But it’s different because _Jun_ is telling him. Competing with the storm now brewing outside, Jun brings his past out into the open. 

He and Wonwoo were together, he tells Soonyoung. Wonwoo died in a plane crash on his way back home after months abroad. It hasn’t been a straight road — moving on, that is. He says he probably hasn’t moved on. Grief counselors do say it’s different for everyone, but he’s paralyzed by this fear that maybe he’s taking too long.

Soonyoung’s heart breaks for him. He’s on the verge of crying himself, but he holds Jun’s hand to offer Jun whatever comfort he can. He’s with him in this; that much is felt on their fingertips.

And then Jun says, _I think we should stop_.

Soonyoung barely registers what the words mean. 

They ring, empty and flat. _It’s going to be hard on you_ , Jun continues before Soonyoung’s brain can even catch up. It had almost sounded rehearsed. Soonyoung feels nauseous. 

It isn’t Soonyoung’s responsibility to get him on track, he says. It shouldn’t have to be down to him. And, not to mention, it’s a hard thing to get used to.

“I know it isn’t. It doesn’t bother me,” Soonyoung pleads. Except maybe it _does,_ because he cares so deeply for Wonwoo, and the entwining of their souls effectively flings all his rationality out the window. But Soonyoung doesn’t want to lose Jun, either, so it’s what he says. He says a lot of things: It’s not about me, so don’t worry about that. I’ll stay. We could work it out. 

Jun matches his growing desperation with a face painfully assured. “But maybe it’s what _I_ need, Soonyoung.” 

It’s said with an air of finality. The ensuing silence is louder than the raging winds now banging against the walls.

“So that’s it, then,” Soonyoung says, barely above a whisper.

“I’m sorry,” Jun apologizes. “It’s not your fault.”

“Well,” Soonyoung reaches for Jun’s hand again, calm. “It’s not yours, either, Jun.”

He smiles at Jun sadly. Jun needs to be told that. He needs to hear it. From someone, anyone. Jun squeezes his hand back, the action rather solemn. 

Soonyoung leaves not long after.

* * *

He has no choice but to withstand the downpour on his way back, having lied about having an umbrella. His throat closes up on him, his sight goes all blurry, and the wetness on his cheeks, he realizes, isn’t just the rain.

The person he wants to see both the least and the most right now appears behind him on the sidewalk. He doesn’t have to turn around to know he’s there.

“When were you gonna tell me yourself?” he says, loud as thunder.

“I don’t know if I ever intended to,” replies Wonwoo, after a reluctant lag.

“Why?” 

He whips around. He’s so, _so_ close to just yielding his words to the crying. At least Wonwoo doesn’t avoid his gaze this time.

“Is this revenge play or something? You don’t seem like the type.” He rubs furiously at his eyes. “Or _are_ you? See, I don’t _know_ you. But you know me. And you’re always around. Always. _Everywhere_.”

Wonwoo lets Soonyoung run his mouth, and he seems to not have much to say in retort, really. For once. He just looks… sad. 

“I’m with a _stranger_. But you get to know everything, don’t you? You get to know how I like my coffee, that I’m mildly lactose intolerant, that I sleep on my side and need two pillows, but I don’t even get to know that I’m dating your boyfriend—” 

“Fiance…” 

“Fiance?” Soonyoung’s eyes go so wide it should be ironically comical. Wonwoo just frets in place under his scrutiny. 

“Fiance!” Soonyoung has to repeat in a pathetic sob. 

“Soonyoung,” Wonwoo calls finally, gentle and sympathetic. It’s soothing a sound, and Soonyoung wishes to be stubborn — but his body betrays him because the softness to Wonwoo’s voice really does everything to loosen and undo the rigid line of his limbs. 

“I just didn’t want you to feel guilty. I know it’s wrong,” Wonwoo says. “It’s my mistake. I just thought that if you felt that way… You could break his heart on account of me.” 

Soonyoung runs a hand through his wet hair, breathing a humorless laugh. Mind reader fucking ghost. It’s like he lives in his mind. A tiny part of him had been reflecting on that guilt, granted. But, well, look at how that all turned out for all of them.

“I’m gone,” Wonwoo says into the rumbling night. 

“Soonyoung, you’re not. I just thought he wouldn’t deserve it if for some reason, you left him, too.”

It’s painful to hear, and Soonyoung is sure it must have been worse to say. Soonyoung’s always hated being a crybaby. It _sucks_ how he cries even harder at that. It’s all just so messy and entangled, this predicament they’ve found themselves in. Soonyoung doesn’t know anything anymore. Up is down, down is up.

“I’m so sorry. I wish I could tell Jun, too.” 

The little crack at the end of _Jun_ tells Soonyoung Wonwoo should be teary. He isn’t, though. Wonwoo is strong to a fault; or at least likes to appear it. 

“You’re as stupid as you are smart,” says Soonyoung. The rain had doused the heat in his speech.

For a while, Wonwoo merely hangs there. He can afford to, as his transhuman form luckily spares him from the rain. The raindrops don’t graze him at all. Not a single damp patch on his coat. The sky continues to roar though, bright light crackling in its breadth, a warning for another crash of rainfall. Unfortunate, because Soonyoung can’t possibly be any more soaked than he already is.

“We're through,” sniffles Soonyoung, voice small. 

His shoulders start to shake, another full-bodied sob forthcoming. Alert, Wonwoo rushes over to delicately scoop him into his arms. He tucks Soonyoung’s head under his chin, and lets him weep into his chest, shielding him from the downpour.

* * *

This is the problem with having shared parts of your life with someone else, Soonyoung supposes.

It’s the moment they leave. Every place has him in some way. Everything becomes Jun.

A loose t-shirt Soonyoung never returned. The soundbytes of a digivolution, a special ringtone. The rickety barn off the beaten road where Soonyoung had spent many summer breaks in his youth, and where Jun had visited, one measly time, when it was refurbished and beautiful and white. The cafe across the antique store — their compromise, for it was the one place Jun claims can truly fulfill the milk tea addiction. 

Even the fucking oven toaster, because he isn’t sure how to resurrect that thing the next time it blows up in his face. Soonyoung’s friends, like Jeonghan who had grown attached to Jun. Jun’s friends, like Minghao who had conversely grown attached to Soonyoung. The absolute leg work-out that is getting to the station from Jun’s street. Daily horoscopes. An old theater. Long drives. Sunrise. Sunsets.

* * *

This is the problem with having shared parts of your life with someone else, Jun supposes.

It’s the moment they leave. Every place has him in some way. Everything becomes— _Wonwoo_.

A calm lake sitting by a mountain. A shorthair figurine (one of the many.) The dog ears on a book. The beginning of November, too — Wonwoo would just get _so_ cold, and before he knew it, Jun had formed a habit of purchasing several hot packs in advance. (Now, when the time comes, he’ll find he doesn't really have to anymore.) 

A photo reel. A ring. The kitchen, where he’d pick off of what Jun was cooking before it was finished. The bursting storage space, where half was allotted for Jun’s useless stuff and the other half for _his_ useless stuff. The veranda, where _his_ potted plants were left behind for Jun to water and keep alive. The space on a queen-sized bed. The curtains he picked out. The framed photos. 

The entirety of Jun’s own damn _home_.

* * *

They met on a Tuesday in May. Soonyoung only remembers because of the ticket he kept. He’s never really had a sharp memory.

(For some reason, _this_ he remembers in detail. If the roles were reversed, he wonders if this would be one of the vignettes that’d come up in Wonwoo’s dreams.)

Jihoon had wanted to watch this local concert, and Soonyoung was sure Jihoon had originally planned to ask someone else. They ended up going together, anyway. It was a tribute to Tchaikovsky, celebrating his however-many-hundredth birthday. Neither were strangers to events like this; they had taken up music performance-adjacent degrees in college, after all.

Once seated inside, Soonyoung unfolded the pamphlet they handed to him at the entrance, squinting at the print in the dark. Jihoon nudged his side when strings billowed throughout the hall in introduction, and Soonyoung refocused his attention. Rapt, the two watched the performances up on stage one after the other. Soonyoung was into it, but Jihoon was _into_ it.

By the end of the whole endeavor — the penultimate performance, if Soonyoung was not mistaken — a piano solo was to take place. The stage is underdressed, with just the one grand piano smack in the middle where the light shone. A tall man with neatly slicked back hair graced the stage then.

The moment he pressed his fingers to the ivories, the breath was knocked out of Soonyoung’s lungs. 

His hands had danced upon the keys in a way that seemed instinctive more than it was memorized or practiced. Even with just the sight of his back and the way the notes echoed in the theater, Soonyoung could feel a very real emotion radiating from his person and laced into the music. Soonyoung was in awe of how it could make his heart ache.

The show wrapped up not long after and the audience began pouring into the streets. Jihoon went ahead since he had to catch an early train. Soonyoung, on the other hand, took his time ambling to the bus stop. There, he simply sat and waited.

It took a good while for Soonyoung to realize that by the end of the bench was the pianist from a while ago. The man stood, dressed down now, his hair ruffled. By this time, it was deep into the night. A full moon bashfully greeted the sky.

“Uh, you’re the one who played the piano right?” Soonyoung piped up. He fished for the pamphlet from his pocket and showed it to him. “I watched. You were amazing.”

The man, now turned to him, ducked his head humbly. Soonyoung couldn’t see beyond the outline of his body, really, when he was up on that chiaroscuro-esque lighted stage. Now, he could see him up close. 

He could see his face, unobscured by the shadows. And _yes_ , it was a handsome face. It also read as fairly surprised, and a little shy about the compliment. “Yeah, that was me. Thank you. Really.” He thoughtlessly tinkered with the end of a jewelry chain hung around his neck as he spoke. 

“Thought I’d be rusty. I haven’t played in a while.” He laughed flatly.

“You were amazing,” insisted Soonyoung. “Do you play professionally?”

“Used to. I’m more in music therapy now.”

Soonyoung hummed. He wanted to talk more, truthfully, but he’d just caught sight of his bus turning the corner on its way to the stop. “Oh, that’s me,” said Soonyoung, when the bus came to halt in front of them. He got up at once, and smiled in Jun’s direction. “Nice meeting you…”

“Jun.” The man smiled back and extended his hand. “I’m Jun.”

Soonyoung took it. “Soonyoung.”

It felt longer than it was. Jun’s eyes were unreadable. It demonstrated, at least, the liminal space between wanting something and being held back. Their hands lingered.

Soonyoung pulled away regrettably and climbed up the steps into the vehicle. Eyes still drawn to the stranger behind a window, he was on the bus.

And then he wasn't. 

Soonyoung got off after shamefully asking the driver for three minutes since he “forgot something.” He rushed to where Jun was left waiting, the latter blinking in surprise at him. With no smoothness to it whatsoever, Soonyoung had asked for his number. Jun responded with a thoroughly amused twinkle in his eye and a mere shrug. 

Well, it was worth a shot, Soonyoung already had himself thinking. He scratched at the back of his neck, about to turn on his heels.

“What about this,” Jun said, stopping him from leaving. “I’ll take you out if, for some reason, we cross paths again.”

“The city’s huge.” Soonyoung chuckled. That fact would dishearten or rattle the average person. Soonyoung wasn’t the average person.

“It’s exciting and not impossible,” Jun maintained.

“Are you a romantic?”

“No,” laughed Jun. “Just annoying.”

“Same,” Soonyoung replied, grinning. It was his assent. He paused by the door to bid Jun a temporary farewell. “Well, I’ll be seeing you, Jun.”

“Sure hope so, Soonyoung. You’re cute,” Jun said. “And more importantly, there’s this great hotpot place I know.”

* * *

They didn’t cross paths for days, and then weeks. When they met again, it was outside the huge city, and it wasn’t until a couple of long, hectic months. Jun’s ridiculous proposal slipped Soonyoung’s mind by then. Work was a culprit. He worked in an office then, would you believe it. More than the 9 to 5 job, however, he had forgotten largely due to how he’d been completely swept up by the flurry that is his older sister’s wedding preparations. 

Soonyoung’s older sister had gotten engaged. She’d constantly gush over how perfect everything was, all while assigning Soonyoung to pick up so-and-so party favor and decoration from the city. Soonyoung was all but a glorified errand boy, but he was happy, because his sister was happy.

It was his sister’s dream wedding: gorgeous white everywhere, the arresting lightness of the color pleasing to the eye. Beautiful flowers decked on columns and walls in stunning volumes one would think the place was a garden. Cloth with muted luster draped delicately from above. No one would recognize that it was the same old farmhouse where she used to take Soonyoung when he could barely walk upright on two wobbly feet. 

During Soonyoung’s visits, she bragged about the Tiffany chairs for the reception, a carpet for the aisle, and an _astonishing_ piano accompaniment. Soonyoung had listened as she organized and planned and even just daydreamed. Soonyoung already felt the urge to cry so expressly before the ceremony even started, because when his sister fit her dress and looked so beautiful, all he’d see behind the dazzling beads and flowy fabric was the spunky pimply young girl from his childhood that he always, _always_ looked up to and adored.

Then the day came. 

Full disclosure, he was teary then, too. His sister walked down the aisle, the hem of her dress fluttering in a way that made her look like she was floating, a heart-stirring tune filling the space as she glided toward the altar. 

Over at the far side was the source of the music. An old wooden piano, and an all-too-familiar silhouette. 

Soonyoung went slack in his seat. _You’ve got to be kidding me._

The piano playing still evoked these feelings in Soonyoung, familiar, but also different. The oldness of the organ, and the love inscribed into the notes of a wedding hymn did beget a sense of longing.

After the ceremony, Soonyoung approached the man in question as he picked from the fare thereupon the fondue table. 

“Guess who owes me hotpot.”

* * *

Soonyoung has one of _those_ dreams again one night. But in this one, he doesn’t die.

It’s hazy; faded at the edges, the images washed out like underdeveloped film. He’s walking — or stumbling, more accurately. His steps are hopelessly dizzy to the point where he has absolutely no right to be so confident about them. 

There’s feathery ice falling everywhere, and across him are campus grounds whitened with the stuff. 

Out of earshot, a shout. A honk and a tire screech. Then, a tug. 

It misses him by a hair. 

He almost lost it all, if it hadn't been for that forceful tug on his arm. He remembers a feeling of release in his chest immediately after, as if to say: _you live to stay on earth another day._

He remembers a lonely figure. A busted streetlight. A red nose and paling hands.

Soonyoung isn’t sure whose memories these are anymore, or if they’re even memories. 

He awakes in the morning, the light feeling returning to his chest— subdued, but there.

* * *

It isn’t all bad. Of course, there isn’t a day where he doesn’t think of Jun and worry. There are silver-linings, though. Soonyoung gets the job he wanted, and he sincerely loves it. He gets to go home early now, too, because all his scheduled classes wrap up before nighttime. 

So one day when he goes home early, he spies Wonwoo using his laptop in a bit of a creative stupor. He lets Wonwoo use his laptop on normal days and especially when he’s not home, because he’s not heartless and — fun fact — there are no possessions in the afterlife. Admittedly, the day job and Wonwoo’s current device fixation makes it sound like he’s raising a teenager.

“What’s up?”

Wonwoo doesn’t respond, probably too focused on whatever task it is that’s keeping him so occupied. Soonyoung drops his keys on the counter, and shrugs his jacket off. 

“Earth to Wonwoo, what are you doing?” Soonyoung says, striding toward the desktop. He goes close in an attempt to peek. Startled by Soonyoung, Wonwoo immediately closes the laptop screen and swivels the chair he’s on.

“What’s that?” Soonyoung pouts.

“Just… Just something I was writing,” Wonwoo answers. “I never got to finish it. I read more than I wrote back then, so. Might as well while I’m still stuck on earth, right?”

“Can I read it?”

Wonwoo awkwardly scratches the back of his neck. “Fine. When it’s done.”

“Do I get the rights to it?” Don’t ever say Soonyoung isn’t forward-thinking. 

There are complications with sorting posthumous rights, especially if you’re currently posthumous. The ridiculousness makes Wonwoo chuckle. Little did he know how dead serious Soonyoung was. “Sure, whatever. Once it’s finished, go crazy.”

“You promise?” Soonyoung prompts, except he says it like _pwomise_.

“ _If_ I get to finish it,” replies Wonwoo. He turns his back on Soonyoung to return to the laptop. “You’re the most distracting person to be soul-bound to.”

“Thank you,” coos Soonyoung, on his way out of Wonwoo’s hair.

* * *

In the photo, there are three of them, fishing rods in hand, standing against the backdrop of a mighty lake. 

“That’s Seungcheol, and this is Jihoon,” Soonyoung points out, a smile in his voice. Wonwoo holds onto Soonyoung’s phone scrutinizing the picture, concerned with the faces of some of Soonyoung’s closest friends, yes, but also something else.

Where Soonyoung dreams, Wonwoo reflects. 

* * *

Whistling winds blew at the hair poking out on the side of Wonwoo’s face. Jun noticed it; briefly reached over to tuck it back into his trusty beanie. The boat had undulated in his movement, and Wonwoo peered over the wooden edge to check the state of the waters they were floating on. 

Wonwoo paused, rather spaced out, looking at his reflection in the still waters. The image of his likeness wasn’t scared. 

“Ironic,” he mumbled.

“What is?” Jun asked curiously.

“Nothing, just… You know I lived by the sea for some time.” _Some time_ put it lightly — Wonwoo spent a childhood by the sea. 

He chuckled softly thinking of it, as he worked on latching bait onto his hook. “Couldn’t even go near a body of water until I was eighteen.”

Back when they were both freshmen at university, Wonwoo strung along to a bender with some other students. Specifics were fuzzy, and he couldn’t remember why he went in the first place when none of those people he knew well at all. The tiny crush on Jun wouldn’t have been enough to drag him out of his room, at least from what Wonwoo remembered.

The night capped off with a dip in a lake not unlike this one, but certainly less beautiful and more cluttered with rowdy students. Wonwoo remembered how Jun got into the water eventually. Wonwoo himself, however, remained standing warily over the edge and shaking his head to rebuff the invitations the politest way he could manage. 

He endured some persistent egging and clamorous choruses to get him into the water before a nudge sent him staggering and nearly falling right in. 

Jun had unexpectedly spoken then. “Guys, that’s enough,” he chided, uncharacteristically stern. The others let Wonwoo be easily, too shitfaced to be put off by Jun’s passing second of seriousness.

“Wonwoo, come here,” he had beckoned, patting the dry surface across him. Looking a little lost, Wonwoo innocently followed. Jun’s heart swelled at the sight. 

He gingerly sat himself near Jun, pants rolled up to his knees, his legs slung over the wooden planks and submerged in the cold water. Jun shot him a smile from below. His bangs were wet over his friendly eyes, there was no light where they stayed save for the moon’s glow, and Wonwoo felt relief. 

The others started reemerging on land or wade deeper into the far center of the lake, while Jun remained where he was. It wasn’t like they were having a particularly stimulating conversation to anchor him there, though.

At one point, Wonwoo had decided to rid himself of his hoodie and climb down with a small splash. Jun watched unblinkingly, sincerely surprised. 

“Hey, you sure?” Jun said, once Wonwoo was in the water. Wonwoo had a death grip on either of Jun’s forearms.

Wonwoo nodded, not looking at him. “Just,” he grit out. “Just don’t leave me.” 

He hated to sound so needy. Jun softly smiled at him.

His grip loosened after a while. 

But he didn’t venture into deeper troughs, nor did he let go of Jun once that whole night. That wasn’t how it worked. The damage doesn’t go away overnight. When it goes, it goes little by little. In baby steps.

And now, Wonwoo was there, rowing a boat with Jun with hardly a twitch in his fingers.

Jun adjusted the oars from across him. (Wonwoo promised he would do the rowing for the way back; he wasn’t about to let Jun do all the work, of course.) 

“The seas back at my hometown were beautiful. I used to get up when it was still so dark, you couldn’t tell land from water,” Jun reminisced. “I never enjoyed swimming though. I was just... Sea-watching? Sky-watching?” He shrugged. “It was something else, when the moon was full. High tides aside.”

“Sounds kind of risky,” Wonwoo commented.

“Yeah, but you know.” Jun held Wonwoo’s gaze with an easy smile. “The view is worth it.”

It was a metaphor for _something_. Maybe it was for a lot of things. For their relationship. Or the grant. Or nothing — maybe it was just a literal statement about the seas at dawn.

“Ooh, I felt a tug,” Jun announced.

He inspected the ripple where his line dropped off, excited. The whole excursion was serene, and had been something they both always talked about wanting to do. A sense of contentment positively poured out of Wonwoo as he watched. Jun groaned, he flailed in this full-body display of his tragic failure, and Wonwoo was in _love_. 

“You know, I’ll still be here,” Jun had told him. “When you return from Paris. It’ll only be some months.”

“I know,” said Wonwoo, this unnamed burden off his shoulders now that they were talking about it. “But after Paris, it might be somewhere else. And it might not be months.”

“Then I’ll come with.”

Wonwoo huffed. “I can’t just ask you to uproot your life—”

“I’ve uprooted my life plenty of times,” Jun countered. Plus, Jun thought, international travel could only mean more opportunities for a performer like him, right? And anyway — “It’s funner than you think. After a while.”

Wonwoo stared hard. It didn’t sound like it could be close to fun, even with the passage of time. Wonwoo himself naturally sought familiarity and stability. Jun had always been a smidge more free-flowing than he was.

“Sweetheart, I’m a Gemini. An air sign.”

Wonwoo sighed. “I don’t know what that means.” 

“You don’t have to. It’s cute that you don’t,” Jun replied. 

Wonwoo frowned. Jun noted the still-troubled posture.

“I’ll be fine,” Jun said, with a sure air and a hand to Wonwoo’s knee. “We’ll be fine, Wonwoo.” 

And Wonwoo believed him. He always did. 

As if all it took — all it ever takes — was Jun’s word. With his reservations relegated to the backburner, Wonwoo turned his attention back to the unmoving reel. 

“Anyway, we don’t have to think so far ahead yet, do we? Look, you’re scaring the fish.” 

Jun gestured to Wonwoo’s remarkably unpopular spot in the lake. Wonwoo snickered, the smile brightening his entire face. If he could, he’d just stay there forever. 

(But you could swap the physical elements of it; trade in the allure of the waters for something else entirely. It didn’t matter. Not as long as he was with Jun.)

Some weeks have passed since the fishing trip. The two were at the airport now, one of them bound for the skies. On their drive there, Wonwoo had asked if Jun wanted a souvenir or anything brought back from France when he returned. Jun thought about it the whole car ride before ultimately deciding on a jar of authentic Dijon mustard when they arrived. 

“What? That’s all?” Wonwoo laughed. 

“Yep, and you, of course.” Jun took this time to fix Wonwoo’s unruly bangs. Wonwoo had pretended to gag at the comment. 

A chaste kiss to Jun’s cheek, one last comforting squeeze of Wonwoo’s jittery hands, and they finally parted.

Wonwoo boarded soon after. The affair is both fascinating and daunting. He’d only ever been on a plane twice before, and surely never alone.

Looking out the window made him feel small. His heart wasn’t as heavy as he thought it would be, though — and for good reason, for in just some months, he would be returning. 

At the time, it was as sure as night following day.

* * *

“What was it like?” Soonyoung asks one day. They’re at a park where Soonyoung is walking Seungkwan’s dog as a favor to him. He’s sure he looks odd, seemingly talking to himself. “Dying.”

“Don’t you know?” Wonwoo says. “You said you remember it.”

“Yeah, I do,” Soonyoung replies. He clicks his tongue down at the maltese when its button nose twitches in interest, eyeing the flowerbed hungrily. “I felt the sensations and the fear and stuff but... what about everything else?”

Wonwoo hums. The dog whimpers at him, like it can see him. That’s what Wonwoo would like to think, anyway. “My life didn’t flash before me, if that’s what you were thinking.” Wonwoo tries to pet it, but the dog trots on over ahead. Wonwoo takes the rejection in stride. “You wouldn’t have the time or the rhyme or reason. Can’t speak for all dead people, though.” 

“Bookeu,” calls Soonyoung, when the white furball begins to distractedly veer away from their path. He nods at Wonwoo to tell him he’s still listening, outdoors-deprived puppy notwithstanding.

“Anyway, next thing I knew I was knocked out and my body was fished out of the water, while my soul — or whatever I’m supposed to be right now —” He gestures to himself. “watched.” 

“Was it weird?”

“It felt wrong — to be separate from your body. From yourself.” Wonwoo stares up at the sky in thought. That day, he had looked straight at his motionless form floating on the surface of the seawater. He looked at the space in the blues where his reflection should have been, but wasn’t.

Soonyoung is as lost in the recollection as he is, even appearing almost reverent when he turns to him and asks, “what were you thinking?”

Wonwoo has a bit of a far-off look to him. He shakes his head, and then he laughs. Soonyoung is confused, at first.

“It’s gonna sound ridiculous, but all I could think at the time was: Shit. How am I gonna get the souvenir fucking mustard to Jun?’” 

Soonyoung stares and Wonwoo stares back. 

Then, they laugh. They double over in laughter, and no doubt it’s kind of morbid. Walking a dog you don’t own with a dead man was also calming, in the same contradictory way.

There is a sense of camaraderie hanging in the air of the macabre, it turns out. 

At least there’s that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think the next chapter will be the last! Stay tuned! and thanks to whoever is reading this passion project of mine LOL T.T <3 <3


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